Presidents Petro and Lula join efforts in defense of the Amazon

Leticia, Colombia, July 8 (RHC)-- Colombian President Gustavo Petro today received his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the National University of Leticia, Amazonas, where they will join forces in defense of the Amazon.

"More than 600 experts and environment ministers are ending today in Leticia, Colombia, a scientific conference to save the Amazon Rainforest. We will close the event with President Lula," Petro said.

For his part, Lula said before his trip to Colombia that in Leticia they will discuss a sustainable development agenda for the region and prepare for the Amazon Summit, next month in Belém.

The meeting on the road to the Amazon Summit in Leticia, capital of the department of Amazonas, bordering Brazil and Peru, seeks to make high-level political commitments to reverse the accelerated deterioration of the Amazon and work for its restoration.

It also seeks to agree on a strategy to guarantee the integrity of the ecosystem, halt destructive land use and prevent the point of no return from being reached, as a response to the climate and biodiversity crisis.

The meeting represents the starting point for the creation of a new agenda for the Amazon Biome based on science, ancestral knowledge, social inclusion and the participation of all stakeholders that will contribute to the design and implementation of innovative public policies for the protection of this important ecosystem.

The strategic plan defined today by local and regional governments, indigenous peoples represented by their authorities, the private sector, research institutes, scientists, universities, civil society and international cooperants also seeks to dignify the population by promoting an economy that regenerates the rainforest.

The proposal under construction will have a financing approach to call the world to concur in this third climate pillar, and to align political positions to have a negotiating force in front of these financial instruments and the debt-for-nature swap, said yesterday the Colombian Minister of Environment, Susana Muhamad.

It will also be a reflection of the co-responsibility of the countries that form part of the Amazon biome in the face of the climate crisis, she emphasized.

This meeting brings together the Ministers of Environment of the host country, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

The meeting also seeks to generate inputs, create strategic conservation actions, establish joint work and languages to be taken to the Amazon Summit in August in Bélem de Pará (Brazil).    (Source: Prensa Latina)