Indigenous leaders push for a new goal to protect Amazon from deforestation

Marseille, France, September 5 (Reuters) – Indigenous groups on Sunday urged world leaders to support a new target to protect 80% of the Amazon basin by 2025, saying bold action was needed to stop deforestation pushing the Earth’s largest rainforest beyond a point of no return.

Amazon delegates began their campaign at a nine-day conference in Marseille, where several thousand officials, scientists and activists are preparing the groundwork for the UN talks on biodiversity in the Chinese city of Kunming next year. Read more

“We invite the world community to join us in reversing the destruction of our home and, in doing so, safeguarding the future of the planet,” said José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, senior coordinator of COICA, which represents indigenous groups of nine countries of the Amazon basin. Reuters.

Just under 50% of the Amazon basin is currently under some form of official protection or indigenous custody, according to research published last year.

But pressure from livestock, mining and oil explorers is growing. In Brazil, which is home to 60% of the biome, deforestation has increased since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, reaching a 12-year high last year and causing an international outcry.

The Amazon basin as a whole has lost 18% of its original forest cover, while another 17% has degraded, according to a flagship study published in July by the Science Panel for the Amazon, based on research by 200 scientists .

If deforestation reaches 20% -25%, it could turn the Amazon into a death spiral in which it dries up and becomes savannah, according to Brazilian Earth System scientist Carlos Nobre.

The Marseille meeting is the latest “World Conservation Congress”, an event held every four years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a forum that convenes governments, civil society and researchers.

COICA wants Congress to approve its “Amazonia80x2025” declaration to give the proposal more chances to gain strength in Kunming, where governments will have to debate goals to protect biodiversity over the next decade.

Report by Matthew Green in Marseille; Additional reports from Jake Spring in Brasilisa; Edited by Mike Harrison

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