Driven by Colombia and Brazil, The countries of the organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA) should sign, next Friday (22), a joint statement of support to the Fund Tropical Forests forever (TFFF), which will be released during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, COP30 in Belém at the end of the year.
The fund will be a financing mechanism designed to preserve these forest biomes, present in about 70 countries, which are crucial for the regulation of the rainfall and carbon capture in the atmosphere.
The statement is one of the documents to be endorsed during a new edition of the Amazon Summit, which will be held in Bogota, Colombia, next Friday (22), and will be attended by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who embarks to the country the day before.
Lula and Colombian President Gustavo Petro will meet at the summit, which provides for a meeting with civil society organizations to receive suggestions for giving measures to global warming and other urgent environmental challenges.
In addition to the declaration in favor of the TFFF, the meeting must approve the Bogota Charter, reinforcing goals and commitments of countries in actions such as the fight against deforestation and sustainable development of the Amazonian biome.
The initiative repeats the methodology adopted two years ago, when the meeting of Amazonian countries occurred in Belém.
“It will be a statement with emphasis on the theme of climate change, but it also intends to take stock of all actions that have been implemented since the Belém summit in 2023,” explained ambassador João Marcelo Queiroz, director of the South America Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), at a press conference to give details of the summit.
In the summit in Bogota, besides Lula and Petro, the presence of Ecuador vice president, Maria José Pinto, is confirmed. The other countries should be represented by chancers.
Diplomatic strategy
In the case of the TFFF-assistance letter, Itamaraty intends, as a diplomatic strategy through the political endorsement of the Amazonian countries, to boost the reach of the new fund, which can capture about $ 125 billion (about R $ 680 billion), among public and private resources, which will be reinvested in forest preservation actions.
“It is an innovative initiative that it will provide funding for developing countries that have tropical forests. It will be a result -based mechanism, that is, countries that have maintained their forests will be paid at up to $ 4 per hectare,” said Patrick Luna, head of the MRE Biodiversity Division.
The amount of US $ 4 per hectare of forest preserved, in the Brazilian case, could generate a contribution of resources, according to the diplomat, in values up to seven times higher than the annual budget of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA), currently in about $ 3.5 billion, potentially reaching figures of over $ 24 billion for each payment cycle.
Created by Brazil, with the support of countries such as Colombia itself, as well as Norway, United Kingdom, France, United Arab Emirates, the fund has also been supported by nations that have huge extensions of tropical forests such as Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malaysia and Indonesia.
In May, an event at the RDC endorsed support from the countries of the Congo basin in Africa to the new financing mechanism. The idea is that a similar event will also take place in countries covered by the Mekong Basin and Borneu Island in Asia. The two basins, along with the Amazon Basin, bring together the most biodiversity forest areas on planet Earth.
Green investment
“The contribution to the fund will not be a donation, it will be investment. Both companies and countries that make contributions to the fund will be paid annually with a competitive market rate, as if they had bought titles from a Triple A debt,” said Patrick Luna. Triple A Funds have a low risk of default.
By the rules, part of the profit returns to the investor, as a regular investment, and the surplus will be directed to countries that protect their tropical forests, proportionally to the preserved area.
The model, according to the Brazilian government, allows investors to recover their resources, with compensation compatible with normal market rates, while contributing to forest preservation and the reduction of carbon emissions.
The Forest Forest Forests will also have, among its rules, the direct transfer of 20% of the total resources to communities of indigenous and traditional peoples who live and preserve these biomes, reinforcing community role in preservation.
All actions should be coordinated by a committee, to be created with representatives of the countries that are part of the working group that is building the proposal.
