Declaration of Belém is progress, say experts – 09/08/2023 – Environment

The signing of the Declaration of Belém by the eight member countries of ACTO (Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization) last Tuesday (8) established a common international agenda for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. Although it has gaps, the document provides guidelines for the creation of cooperation mechanisms and future goals.

For experts heard by Sheetthe Amazon Summit had among its greatest merits the reactivation of ACTO – the last meeting of the bloc’s presidents had taken place in 2009. According to Antônio Maués, professor at UFPA (Federal University of Pará), the declaration paves the way for the organization to strengthen institutionally.

The researcher mentions the commitment to create an Additional Protocol within the treaty, so that the presidents of member countries, when gathered, can take decisions in a collegial manner. “It means creating a forum for deliberation in which the countries have to negotiate and take concrete decisions – it is the moment in which goals can be established, for example, or common policies linking the different governments”, explains Maués.

NGOs working in the Amazon stated that two important issues were left out of the text: the establishment of deadlines for reducing deforestation and the creation of barriers to oil exploration in the region.

In response, the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Brazil, Marina Silva, said that the Amazonian nations have not committed themselves to zero deforestation due to lack of consensus.

“ACTO documents, as it usually happens [com organizações internacionais], must be approved unanimously. Brazil would have no problem setting a deforestation target, because it has already made this commitment. But other countries have different realities and it is very difficult to establish concrete goals at this time of the organization’s relaunch”, defended Maués.

According to Paulo Artaxo, coordinator of Ceas (Center for the Study of the Sustainable Amazon) at USP (University of São Paulo), the document initiates a “joint effort to structure an economy and society that are minimally sustainable, combating illegalities and making sure that each constitution is respected”.

The text proposes, in this sense, the exchange of intelligence information and police cooperation aimed at combating illicit activities and environmental crimes, such as illegal extraction of wood and ores. “This has never happened before and it’s very important. Because when you expel illegal mining from Brazil, they [garimpeiros] flee to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas. There needs to be a common policy to combat illegality”, says the researcher.

An Amazon International Police Cooperation Center should be implemented in Manaus to coordinate prevention, repression and investigation of illicit activities. The statement also mentions the creation of an integrated air traffic control system in the region to improve the fight against drug trafficking and other crimes, such as the illegal exploitation of Amazonian resources.

The declaration also provides for the intensification of scientific collaboration in the region, with the creation of the Intergovernmental Technical-Scientific Panel for the Amazon – dubbed the “IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) for the Amazon”. For specialists, this should favor the exchange of research and teaching institutions in the region, in addition to the sharing of remote sensing technologies, for example.

Social participation, especially by indigenous peoples and traditional communities in the Amazon, is also foreseen in the declaration and should play an important role as a pressure instrument, say the researchers.

“There is no doubt that it is an important letter. It is not complete, it has fundamental gaps, such as the issue of deforestation and the exploitation of fossil fuels. the entire Amazon region,” said Artaxo.