Amazon summit to kick off
Aug. 7, 2023
The leaders of eight Amazon rainforest nations will meet tomorrow in Brazil, the first Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization summit in 14 years.
The heads of state of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela will seek to agree on unified policies, goals and positions in international negotiations on some 130 issues ranging from financing for sustainable development to indigenous inclusion. (See last Friday’s post.)
Ending uncontrolled deforestation, promoting regeneration of degraded areas, and supporting an estimated 30 million people inhabiting the Amazon are the central goals of the summit, which is set to agree on “an ambitious if sprawling agenda emphasizing security, development, and environmental protection across the roughly 2.7 million square miles of rainforest,” writes Robert Muggah in Foreign Policy.
The formation of an Amazonian parliament, with the participation of all nations that share the biome, is expected to be included in the final document and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aims to present the joint agreement at COP28, reports Mongabay.
As government “seek to clamp down on a Wild West atmosphere of resource extraction, human rights abuses and environmental crime” in the Amazon, “collaboration across borders is a must,” reports the Associated Press.
Indeed, combating transnational crime is key to preserving the Amazon: “Forest loss is being accelerated by a metastasis of organized crime, including a surge in cocaine production, trafficking, and consumption,” writes Muggah. (See last Friday’s post.)
However, the governments will likely face divisions over proposals to block new oil drilling and end deforestation, reports Reuters. At a pre-summit meeting last month, Colombian President Gustavo Petro pushed his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to block all new oil development in the Amazon — an issue that has divided Brazil’s governing coalition pitting advocates for regional development against environmentalists. (See below.)
Lula has sought for all countries in the region to pledge an end to deforestation by 2030. Only Bolivia and Venezuela have not yet made such a commitment, notes Reuters.
More Amazon
Ahead of the summit thousands of environmental activists, campaigners, Indigenous leaders and top politicians poured into Belém for a preparatory assembly to discuss ways to protect Indigenous territories, save the rainforest from a catastrophic tipping point and combat organized crime groups, which are tightening their grip on the region, reports the Guardian.
Environmental demonstrators protested yesterday in Belém against plans by Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras to drill for oil at the mouth of the Amazon river, reports Reuters.
Indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire will urge the region's head of state to step up their efforts to preserve the rainforest that is vital to his people's survival and the global climate, he told Reuters. Raoni said threats to the rainforest have decreased since Lula took office this year, but the danger for Indigenous people is now the Brazilian Congress, where the farm lobby is pushing legislation to end further recognition of their ancestral lands.
Indigenous communities are critical to conservation efforts, writes actor Mark Ruffalo in a Guardian op-ed that calls for public support to ensure Amazon protection.
A study in Peru’s rainforest is providing the first extensive indications that mercury from illegal and poorly regulated mining is affecting terrestrial mammals in the Amazon, reports Reuters.
Regional
The heatwave affecting South America this year’s austral winter is the start of a predicted cycle of high temperatures in the region, a combination of human-caused climate change and El Niño weather system. (Guardian, Guardian, New York Times, see Friday’s briefs.)
The first Latinobarómetro report since 2020 refers to a "democratic recession,” related to the region’s low support for this form of government, indifference to the type of regime and the rise of authoritarianism. Cenital’s Juan Elman interview’s Latinobarómetro founder Marta Lagos.
Migration
“International law has yet to adapt to a changing climate and its implications for those most vulnerable.” An article in Michigan State International Law Review applies “a human rights lens to climate induced displacement,” looking at the examples of Central America’s Northern Triangle and Raizal communities in the island of Providencia, Colombia.
A U.S. federal appeals court panel approved the Biden administration’s emergency request to keep its asylum restrictions in place on the U.S.-Mexico border while the legal battle over the policy makes its way through the courts. (Washington Post)
Haiti
Human rights groups have raised significant concerns about the Kenyan police force’s record, which they say makes them a problematic option to lead a security mission to assist Haitian law enforcement. Violations include beating protesters and gunning down civilians during Covid-19 curfews, killing as many as 30 people in protests last month, and alleged forced disappearances. (Guardian, see Friday’s briefs.)
As an assessment team from Kenya prepares to head to Port-au-Prince and New York later this month to hold consultations about its offer to assist the Haitian national police in its fight against gangs, the U.S. seeks to raise additional support from the international community for a multinational force that they hope will go beyond the 1,000 police officers Kenya is considering deploying Haiti, reports the Miami Herald.
The gang violence ravaging Haiti has provoked a sharp rise in infant malnutrition — AFP
Colombia
Allegations that illicit money was used to finance Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s successful presidential campaign last year — made by his son Nicolás — will further undermine the government’s efforts to carry out sweeping economic reform, reports the Financial Times.
A Colombian judge on Friday night ordered Nicolás Petro freed from detention while he is investigated on allegations of illicit enrichment and money laundering, reports the Associated Press.
Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez,” commander of ex-FARC mafia faction the Second Marquetalia, is alive and well, according to Colombia’s government. He was widely reported dead last month. Márquez’s “second resurrection puts an apparently weakened Second Marquetalia back on the map, though with little room for maneuvering,” reports InSight Crime.
El Salvador
The Salvadoran government’s military cordon around the department of Cabañas last week is the latest demonstration that the Bukele administration is doubling down on the security crackdown, despite the reduction of homicide rates and gang presence in the country over the past year, reports InSight Crime. (See last Wednesday’s post.)
Argentina
Argentina’s open primaries are next Sunday, the final polls (they can’t be published this week) tend to predict Patricia Bullrich will win the Juntos por el Cambio primary. (MDZ)
Union por la Patria’s Sergio Massa will be the single most voted candidate, according to Federico González & Asociados, with 23.8%, followed by Bullrich with 20.1%, and libertarian Javier Milei with 19.5%. (Cronista)
The primaries effectively serve as a first round for public opinion, so obtaining a strong showing relative to the other candidates is important for the October general election.
Chile
A helicopter used in the Pinochet dictatorship’s death flights is now a prop in a U.K. gamepark — sparking revulsion in Chile, and calls for its return. Attempts to bring a prosecution for Chile’s death flights foundered due to lack of evidence, the helicopter itself, reports the Guardian.
Culture Corner
“Leny Andrade, the Brazilian singer who earned an international following with her soulful fusion of samba, bossa nova and American jazz and whom Tony Bennett once called the Ella Fitzgerald of Brazil, died on July 24 in Rio de Janeiro. She was 80.” — New York Times