THE presidents of Brazil and Colombia discussed regional coordination to fight deforestation and protect the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest at a meeting in Colombia’s Amazonian city of Leticia on Saturday.
“My government is committed to eliminating illegal deforestation by 2030,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who called for better regional and global coordination.
He added: “This is a commitment that the Amazon countries can assume together at the upcoming Belem summit.”

The meeting between Lula and Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro followed talks in Leticia earlier this week between environmental ministers from Amazonian countries, including Colombia’s Susana Muhamad, Peru’s Albina Ruiz Rios, and Josue Lorca from Venezuela, among others.
Both Petro and Lula, who each took office less than a year ago, have called on rich nations to cough up funds to help South American countries preserve the Amazon, considered key to fighting global climate change.

Meetings in Leticia come before a summit of Amazon nations hosted by Brazil in the city of Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, in August.
The coming summit is an attempt to move the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization nations to act together to preserve the forest and promote sustainable development in a region threatened by illegal loggers and gold miners, animal smugglers and drug traffickers.
The organization was started in 1978 by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. French Guiana, an overseas territory of France, is invited to meetings. (Reuters)

Amazon deforestation down by a third in 2023, says Brazilian government
DEFORESTATION in Brazil’s Amazon fell by 33.6 per cent in the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term compared with the same period in 2022, the government says.
It suggests the rainforest shrank by 2,649 sq km this January-June, down from 3,988 sq km in those six months last year under President Bolsonaro.The released government satellite data has not been independently verified. Lula has pledged to end deforestation, or forest clearance, by 2030.
But he faces a huge challenge to achieve this target, as the area of rainforest still reported to be lost under his rule is more than three times the size of New York City.The past few years have seen an alarming rise in deforestation. The Amazon rainforest is a crucial buffer in the global fight against climate change. The new satellite data was presented by Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) on Thursday.

“We have reached a steady downward trend in deforestation of the Amazon,” Environment Minister Marina Silva told reporters.Inpe singled out June as the month that saw a record 41 per cent drop in forest clearance compared with the same period last year. Lula, who took office in January, has vowed to reverse policies of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who promoted mining in indigenous lands in the Amazon.

Earlier this year, Lula decreed six new indigenous reserves, banning mining and restricting commercial farming there.Indigenous leaders welcomed the move – but stressed that more areas needed protection.And while deforestation was reported to have fallen, fires were up in the statistics. In June alone, satellite monitoring detected 3,075 fires in the Amazon – the highest number since 2007.

Many of the blazes – releasing vast amounts of carbon emissions – have been linked to the clearing of previously deforested areas.
Lula, who previously served as Brazil’s president in 2003-2010, has also been pushing for the world’s richest nations to pay for various initiatives aimed at saving the rainforest.
In April, research by Global Forest Watch monitoring network showed that an area of tropical forest the size of Switzerland was lost last year around the world as tree clearance surged.
It said that some 11 football pitches of forest were lost every minute in 2022, with Brazil dominating the destruction.

It suggested that a political pledge to end deforestation made by world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in 2021 was well off track.
The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world, and 60 per cent of it is in Brazil.
Due to the large number of trees growing there, it is often called “the lungs of the planet” on account of how the trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. (BBC)