The United States government announced this Sunday morning (17) the consolidation of an aid package for conservation initiatives in the Amazon, as part of its national program to combat climate change. American President Joe Biden visited Manaus this Sunday. 
It was the first visit by a US president to the Amazon while in office, where bilateral agreements were announced, marking 200 years of mutual relations between Brazil and the United States; actions in conjunction with NGOs and companies, including Brazilian banks and support for the fight against organized crime, especially illegal action in mining and felling trees and fighting forest fires.
The actions, according to the announcement, are to “help accelerate global efforts to combat and reverse deforestation and deploy nature-based solutions that reduce emissions, increase biodiversity and build resilience to a changing climate.”
Symbolic, the action expands the range of initiatives for what the White House considers international climate financing, and opposes some public positions of President-elect Donald Trump, a notorious denier of the impact of human action on the climate.
In the note on the package, the American government recalls that “since the first day of the Biden-Harris administration, the fight against climate change has been a defining cause of President Biden’s leadership and presidency.”
“Over the past four years, the government has created a new playbook that has turned tackling the climate crisis into a huge economic opportunity – both at home and abroad. After leading the most significant domestic action on climate and conservation in history and leading global efforts to address the climate crisis, today President Biden is traveling to Manaus, Brazil, where he will meet with indigenous leaders and others,” the note reads.
The announced action celebrates the milestone of US$11 billion annually guaranteed for conservation actions around the world, an increase claimed by Washington of six times in relation to the budget for bilateral financing at the beginning of the Biden administration, when he succeeded Trump’s first term.
Part of the actions will come through the federal office of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the US Export-Import Bank (Exin). The first will donate US$3.71 billion and the second US$1.6 billion later this year.
Among the announcements formalized in Manaus, the United States will donate US$50 million to the Amazon Fund, doubling the country’s contribution to this international financing instrument; will launch a coalition of investors, in partnership with the bank BTG Pactual, to restore land and support the bioeconomy, which aims to raise US$10 billion by 2030, focused on projects to remove emissions and support local communities; support for initiatives to generate carbon credits with reforestation of areas converted into pastures, under the responsibility of the company Mombak; the country’s entry into the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (FFTS), proposed by Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and in the modeling and installation phase, using private capital.
Direct investments are planned, such as US$180 million with the Emissions Reduction Coalition through the Advancement of Forestry Financing (Leaf), for reforestation actions in Pará; the expansion of an investment and co-financing agreement between the DFC and the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), expanding the agreement signed last month; financing for the Nature-Based Solutions Investment Laboratory (SbN), with US$2 million from the USAID fund for the initiative, the Climate and Society Institute and financial institutions; the investment of US$2.6 million in the Rainforest Wealth project, by Imaflora and the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), in addition to just over US$10 million in investment in other projects in bioeconomy, low-carbon supply chains and other modalities of local production, and another around US$14 million in direct financing for the activities of indigenous communities.
The package announcement also included three critical points in protecting the biome: combating illegal logging, combating illegal mining and assistance in combating fire.
Against wood extraction there will be training in technology to identify the origin of the wood, using the Mass Spectrometry technique (Dart-Tofms: Direct Analysis in Mass Spectrometry in Real Time Flight), to identify where the inspected wood comes from accurately.
The announced package highlights the United States’ participation in financing the fight against criminal activities involved in illegal mining and mercury trafficking, with a donation of US$1.4 million.
Against the fires, the 15-year partnership with the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (Inpe) stands out, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which works with the United States monitoring satellite network. There will also be training from the US Forest Service for “inclusive fire management, empowering women and indigenous communities, including the first all-female indigenous fire brigade in Tocantins and Maranhão.
Repercussion
THE Brazil Agency heard the Amazônia de Pé movement, which brings together 20 thousand activists and around 300 organizations. Its spokesperson and director, Daniela Orofino, declared that she received “with great joy the news given by President Biden today (17), that the USA will support the Tropical Forest Fund forever, a proposal led by the Brazilian government for multilateral financing the protection of tropical forests. This is a demand that traditional peoples and Amazônia de Pé have been raising for some time, so that the Fund can effectively get off the ground.”
“A country like the USA, which produces impacts that are directly related to climate change, also has a responsibility to invest in global mitigation actions, and the Amazon is at the center of climate change policies,” said Orofino.
“The issue of land is key to combating the climate crisis. Demarcating indigenous territories and traditional communities in the Amazon and guaranteeing resources for their protection is the way forward. We need to make the money reach the people of the forest, who are guardians of these spaces, and protection structures, such as Ibama and ICMBio. Therefore, we will remain attentive so that this support is implemented, despite the challenges that will come with the change of North American government”, said Daniela Orofino.
The executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, Marcio Astrini, said that the announcement is positive and could consolidate public policies that are being structured in the region.
˜These are extremely important announcements, and most of them are related to protecting the Amazon, defending biodiversity and combating deforestation. Deforestation is one of the main factors in greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil today. Zeroing deforestation is absolutely possible. The current government, in fact, has been reducing deforestation rates quite substantially, in the last two years, around a 45% reduction, and these investments will allow these policies to combat deforestation to continue to be strengthened and also a forest economy be placed in the place, in the places where today you have the development of an economy of destruction. Therefore, preservation becomes a way of generating income, of generating benefits for the population, and that is what we need, fighting crime, generating income through protecting the forest. This type of announcement that is being made goes in this direction and that is why it is important.”
The executive secretary of the non-governmental organization dedicated to reducing emissions highlighted the “very special emphasis on the issue of the Amazon Fund”.
“The United States has already deposited around US$50 million in the Amazon Fund in this last period. From the announcement it appears that we will have another deposit of US$50 million and the Amazon Fund has demonstrated over time that it is a A fundamental instrument for combating deforestation and combating environmental crime, since almost all deforestation in the Amazon occurs illegally.
Listen on National Radio Agency:
