Denmark frustrates Lula and does not announce contribution to the Amazon Fund – 07/18/2023 – Environment

Contrary to the expectations of the Brazilian government, Denmark did not announce its contribution to the Amazon Fund during the summit that takes place in Brussels, Belgium, and which ends on Tuesday (18).

A bilateral meeting between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, took place at 3:15 pm, but the most that Brazil managed to get out was the intention to approve a contribution to the Amazon Fund in the Danish budget .

Since it started working again, with the Lula government, new contributions to the program have been announced, such as that of the European Union, of R$ 108 million, of the United Kingdom, of R$ 500 million, and of the United States, of R$ 2 .5 billion.

Lula and Frederiksen’s meeting took place within the framework of Celac-UE, an event that brings together heads of the 33 countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and 25 of the European Union (EU).

In addition to committing to trying to approve a contribution to the fund in the Danish budget, Frederiksen spoke about the fight against inequality and invited Lula to visit his country. Lula also invited her to visit.

The Amazon Fund was created in 2008, during President Lula’s second government, to raise donations against deforestation in the rainforest. Resources are paid only if there is proof of reduction in deforestation.

Since it started, after the first transfers made by Norway and Germany, the mechanism has already received R$ 3.3 billion in donations, which became R$ 5.5 billion with the addition of financial income.

Most initiatives are carried out in partnership between NGOs and the nine Amazonian states (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins). By the beginning of this year, 102 projects worth R$ 1.74 billion had already been approved.

In all, the fund registers 384 institutions involved, 195 conservation units supported, 59,000 indigenous people benefited, 207,000 people benefited from sustainable activities and 1,700 environmental inspection missions.

In 2019, under the then Minister of the Environment of the Jair Bolsonaro government, Ricardo Salles, the Amazon Fund was paralyzed, following a presidential decree that extinguished participatory councils — among them were two committees that monitored the actions of the Amazon Fund. As a result, the mechanism returned to function only this year, under Lula’s administration.