Amazon Summit Avoids Vetoing Oil Exploration
he Declaration of Belem, the final document of the Amazon Summit signed by representatives of eight countries in the region, has avoided vetoing oil exploration at the mouth of the largest river in the forest and proposes a dialogue on the sustainability of this activity and of mining. The text of the meeting in Para, which dealt with security and climate, mentions four times the importance of avoiding an irreversible process of forest desertification, which would require limiting deforestation to around 20% of the biome. But it does not set goals or deadlines for this to happen. The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, exposed fissures in the group in a speech in which he accused the left, of which he is a part, of climate denialism. The position opposes the two main countries in the region, since the Lula government defends looking for oil in mouh of the Amazon River. Minister Alexandre Silveira (Mines and Energy) even denied that there was a scientific consensus on the relationship between fossil fuels and the climate crisis.