During the visit of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the booth of the Interstate Forum of the Legal Amazon, at the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP27), the region's governors delivered to the Brazilian President a letter in which they reaffirm their commitment to cooperate "in favor of policies oriented to conservation and sustainable development. In the document, read by the governor of Pará, Helder Barbalho, the governors also ask for a joint effort "that allows greater speed in the processing of international support.
Besides Helder, the governors of Acre, Gladson Cameli (PP); Mato Grosso, Mauro Mendes (Union); and Tocantins, Wanderlei Barbosa (Republicans), were also present.
See, below, the full text of the Letter translated to English:
27TH UN CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES ON CLIMATE CHANGE - COP-27
LETTER FROM THE GOVERNORS FOR THE AMAZON
Aware of the strategic importance of the Amazon for national development, the Governors of the nine states of the Legal Amazon reaffirm their commitment and their spirit of cooperation in favor of policies oriented to the conservation and sustainable development of the Region.
In this new political framework resulting from the October 2022 elections, we express our willingness to build a fruitful and effective relationship with the Federal Government, based on democratic respect, observance of the Constitution, and dialogue with the powers that be at the state and federal levels.
The urgency posed by the climate emergency also requires urgency in finding solutions. This imperative requires a dialogue with the international community, aiming at structuring more effective partnerships, as well as the observance of the principles and the fulfillment of the commitments assumed in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the Paris Agreements.
The Amazon is a region of superlatives, contradictions, challenges and opportunities. The Amazon is also a multicultural space whose diversity is one of the elements that define the Brazilian identity. The wealth of its natural resources has been the engine, at different historical moments, of Brazil's economic development and geopolitical projection.
The economic transformations then generated were, however, incapable of reducing inequality and eradicating extreme poverty. The current development model, in order to be economically powerful, brought the cost of being environmentally devastating and socially excluding.
Changing this requires a new cooperation between the states of the legal Amazon and the federal government, guided by science, stability and institutional reinforcement, and driven by the determination and political will of both parties. This cooperation requires resuming the constructive dialogue with the other Amazon countries in order to strengthen their concertation, as well as to reinforce the capacity of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA) to act.
One important aspect: in the last four years the Amazon States have reached a level of relationship capacity with international organizations, with the civil society, with financial institutions and even with each other, which should be encouraged and cannot go backwards and supported by the new federal government in its attempt to reach the best possible cooperation.
It is urgent to overcome the asymmetry between the legal responsibilities assumed by subnational units and their precarious structural and financial capacities. This contradiction hinders the presence and effectiveness of our actions in the territory, derived, in large part, from the historical centralization and distancing of the federal entity in relation to the Amazon reality.
In the context of this collaboration, we propose a joint effort that allows greater speed in the processing of international support, particularly in the financial area, in order to transform the reality of the forest and local communities in a shorter period of time.
We need a living forest, that is, one that is capable of providing environmental services and generating remuneration for them and for the products derived from them. This notion of life" is the framework that will allow us to monetize the forest as a new "commodity" in the market of environmental goods and services.
The position of leading a vast, complex and essential region for the development of Brazil and the maintenance of the factors that determine human existence on this planet, as is the Amazon, requires from each Governor a high sense of public responsibility in this Consortium. This same commitment we expect from the high authorities of the Federal Executive and the members of the National Congress in the appreciation and treatment of matters of interest to the region.
It is necessary to leverage the means for the promotion of sustainable development in the region, particularly with emphasis on innovation, on the strengthening of the aggregation of value to forest and biodiversity products, by means of the bio-economy. Making this a reality requires improving human and institutional capacities and mobilizing entrepreneurial action. At the same time, it is necessary to combine technical and ancestral knowledge so that the productive potential of the Amazon can be expressed through the rational use of the Region's vocations and with a fair and equitable return for the local populations. These efforts - at the domestic and international levels - must be based on practical solutions aimed at giving greater dignity to the 29.6 million inhabitants of a region that is key to the conservation of the planet's biodiversity and climate stability.
The way out for the adequacy of the Brazilian economy in the post-pandemic period is necessarily through Amazonia. There can be no truly developed Brazil living with an Amazon region in which the majority of the population remains in conditions that threaten its dignity, due to the lack of sanitation, malnutrition and deficiencies in the areas of health, education and infrastructure.
A developed Brazil necessarily requires a living, pulsating and conserved Amazon, capable of expressing its potentialities to the world.
It is still possible, but the Amazon we want needs to happen now.
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, November 16, 2022.
CONSORTIUM OF GOVERNORS OF THE LEGAL AMAZON
