Leticia, Colombia (EFE) the extinction of life, the opposite of development”.
Together with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Petro closed the meeting “Road to the Amazon Summit”, which has been held since Thursday in the city of Leticia, where today he advocated “transforming the entire world economic system”, which which is a challenge, but it is the only path that will preserve life.
“We believed that development meant cutting down these trees, turning these fields into pastures (…) that progress was the destruction of the tree,” stressed the president, who advocated development “that has nothing to do with cutting down the tree” but with ” protect life.”
And that means “extremely difficult discussions” such as prohibiting hydrocarbon exploration in the Amazon jungle, for which the Amazonian countries have to apply the same pressure to achieve this protection of life.
Lula calls for union to save the jungle
Lula da Siva, made this Saturday an appeal to the Amazonian countries to unite around the defense of this natural reserve both in international forums and in the fight against those who destroy the jungle.
“We must join efforts so that in international discussions our voice is heard with force in conferences on climate, biodiversity and desertification, and in debates on sustainable development”, said the Brazilian president.
In this sense, Lula advocated the institutional strengthening of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA), which he said is “a tool that, instead of isolating us, has the capacity to project us towards the center of the most important challenge of our time.” , climate change”.
A summit for the Amazon
Both leaders today closed the three-day meeting that indigenous and environmental organizations and ministers from the eight countries of the Amazon arc have held since Thursday in Leticia and which serves to prepare the Amazon Summit that will take place in Belém do Pará (Brazil) on 8 and August 9.
This is the first time that the environment ministers of the eight Amazon countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela) meet to agree on policies to preserve the largest lung in the world. .
Among the issues, in addition to deforestation, it has also been raised how to fight transnational environmental crimes, the preservation of indigenous peoples or the transfer of knowledge for the development of the Amazon.