Posted on October, 03 2014

As the Latin American and Amazonian Climate CoP-20, Lima 2014, approaches, September was marked by a massive global mobilization to demonstrate to world leaders attending the UN Climate Summit 2014 that it is time to take action and respond to the worsening climate crisis. There were around 2,800 protest events in 166 countries and the New York People's Climate March alone gathered some 400 thousand participants.

The UN Climate Summit was not a decision making meeting, but a call from the UN Secretary to raise ambition levels for the expected agreement to come in Paris 2015. Although not many concrete or new commitments were put on the table, the message was sent out from several fronts to the national governments and some of the signs presented at the UN were significant, including from the most important emitting countries.

One important sign from this summit was the New York Declaration on Forests, in which world leaders endorse a global timeline to cut natural forest loss in half by 2020, and strive to end it by 2030. It also calls for restoring forests and croplands of an area larger than India. Meeting these goals would cut between 4.5 and 8.8 billion tons of carbon pollution every year.

Although less ambitious than the WWF call for zero net deforestation and forest degradation by 2020 and less ambitious than some of the commitments already declared by some key Amazon countries (as in the cases of Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana), this can be seen as a positive initial step, for it represents the first time a deadline for stopping deforestation and measures for forest restoration were declared at global level with relatively broad representation from governments, companies, and civil society organizations. However, this is not enough to face the climate change crisis, as no similar declaration was made on energy related emissions and other fronts like the transportation sector for example and, surprisingly, it was not endorsed by the government of Brazil, a country that shelters 60% of the Amazon biome.

For WWF, zero net deforestation has to be achieved by 2020, and for the Amazon region, ideally, before this, with a cap of around 20+% conversion maximum. The Amazon is the largest tropical forest and one of the most important natural regions in the world.

“Even with the good signs of reduction, its deforestation is among the most globally important ones, affecting the climate worldwide, the rainfall patterns in most of the continent, people’s livelihoods and ecology in the region. Some parts of the regions and countries are showing important decreases, accounting for the most important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, but the levels are still too high and some other parts still show important increases. The Amazon has the potential to reduce deforestation further, due to the monitoring capacity, protection levels, and the interest of some governments and civil society organizations if the right decisions and commitments are taken seriously by all the Amazonian country governments”, comments Claudio Maretti, leader of the WWF Living Amazon Initiative.

Brazilian Amazon deforestation rates

It was also in September that the Brazilian government, through its National Institute for Space Research (INPE, is the Portuguese acronym) confirmed that deforestation in the Amazon reached a total of 5,891 square kilometers between August 2012 and July 2013, an increase of around 29% compared to the previous 12 month period.

The total area deforested in the Brazilian Amazon reached about 76 million hectares in 2013, equivalent to about 20% of its original forests. The volume and speed of the devastation require urgent policies and actions to control deforestation, preserve the environment and promote sustainable use of natural resources.

Now the first the preliminary announcement of the rates for the period 2013-2014, usually released in November before Climate Convention conferences, is anxiously awaited for it will confirm or not a steady upward trend in deforestation rates.

Amazon Security Agenda

WWF´s International president Yolanda Kakabadse presented a lecture about the Amazon Security Agenda at the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro as part of a set of actions that WWF and the Catholic University are undertaking to exchange information and contributions in the environmental sphere.

The Amazon Security Agenda delineates the inter-relations of water, energy, food production, health and climate change and shows how they need to be addressed together, as a set, in order to meet human needs without exhausting natural resources.

“It is essential to improve public administration in all sectors. We need to sit together around the same table and only leave when we are sure that we are all benefiting from facing the problems together” she declared.

The growing frequency of extreme events like prolonged droughts and floods brought about by climate change will have extremely costly and complex consequences for people in the whole of Latin America who depend on the forest to recycle water and provide rain.

“This situation goes beyond the environmental issues. It is a question of regional prosperity and security that demands the collaborative action of government leaders, prioritising and discussing our relation of dependence on the Amazon. With the upcoming Climate Conference in Lima this December, the government authorities will have an opportunity to make bold decisions” Kakabadse said.

Deforestation and climate change are intensifying and threatening the region with a loss of equilibrium that will affect people and economies far beyond its frontiers. “Achieving a balance between economic development and protection for the Amazonian ecosystems is crucial to guaranteeing a secure future”, insists Kakabadse.