Amazon summit brings attention to the rainforest’s future

The eight Amazonian nations came together to discuss the future of the world’s largest rainforest but left many with mixed feelings.

Last week, countries across South America were brought together to discuss the future of the world’s largest rainforest. Hosted in Belem, Brazil, the event was an attempt to embrace President Lula’s “Amazon Dream” and his approach to environmental diplomacy.

The summit saw two agreements signed; the Belem and the United for Our Forests declarations. From strengthening law enforcement to having rich countries pay financial support, many clauses lie within each. So what were the biggest topics addressed over the two-day course of the event?

The Amazon region is home to approximately 1.5 million indigenous people, and 45% of the conserved regions within the rainforest are situated within their territories. Their communities frequently encounter challenges while safeguarding their ancestral lands against organized criminal activities. Their resistance to land invasions, resource extraction, and other encroachments often exposes them to violence, as they assert their rights and protect their territories.

However, indigenous activists have called out the declaration for being vague and lacking details as to how the Amazonian nations will implement their commitments. They argue that it only seeks to promote the rights of the indigenous people rather than recognize and enforce them.

When it came to environmental discussions, tensions arose. The struggles faced by indigenous communities in the Amazon not only threaten their way of life but also have profound implications for the fragile and vital ecosystem of the region.

The declaration left the nations free to interpret their deforestation goals on their own, dismissing the shared vision that was proposed in the ‘Amazon Dream’. Most of the rainforest lies within the boundaries of Brazil. Under the government of Lula’s predecessor, Jai Bolsanora, the rainforest and its inhabitants came under immense attack. Once Lula took over, he managed to thwart Bolsonaro’s effect on the region by reducing deforestation rates by over 60% last July.

Yet, there happens to be much work to reverse the damage done. Nations such as Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia are also heavily contributing to deforestation with very limited goals against it.

Other than the loss of biodiversity, deforestation has led to the loss of the rainforest’s structural integrity, hindering its ability to heal from droughts and landslides. The Amazon is also one of the biggest carbon sinks in the world, and the loss of trees there does more harm to the current climate of the planet.

Mining has long been of great debate, as Brazil itself plans to drill for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River – a development heavily opposed by Colombian President Petro. Out of the 8 Amazonian nations, Ecuador is known for drilling the most oil in the rainforest in an opportunity to boost its economy.

In the past 15 years, the Ecuadorian government has documented oil wells across 68% of the rainforest. On the note of gold mining, production seems to be increasing yearly. In the Peruvian jurisdiction of the Amazon, mining expanded by a staggering 400% between 1999 and 2012.

Illegal mining, often linked to organized crime, has been a major threat to the rainforest. It is estimated that over 20,000 illegal miners are operating in the region. To tackle this, the summit proposed tightening law enforcement to crack down on organized crime rings and invest in ecotourism and sustainable agriculture.

Yet, it is almost hypocritical that the governments’ efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest are undermined by their own mining operations.

In the end, illegal or not, the effects of mining are indifferent. Mercury poisoning has been a great concern. According to a test done by scientists, 330 primate samples from the rainforest have shown signs of mercury poisoning at astounding levels. The presence of mercury can cause harm to different systems of an organism and at worst, cause death.

Though the chemical exists naturally in the Amazon’s ecosystem, the increased mining activities have caused an abundance of it, leading it to the reach of the waters and even the air breathed in. If it persists, mercury would end up bioaccumulating in living organisms within the Amazon leading to their demise or even extinction.