BELEM, Brazil - Brazil and France on March 26 launched an investment programme to protect the Brazilian and Guyanese Amazon rainforest involving €1 billion (S$1.5 billion) in private and public funds over the next four years.
The announcement was made during French President Emmanuel Macron’s three-day visit to the South American country, where he landed on March 26 in Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon, and was met by Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“Gathered in Belem, in the heart of the Amazon, we, Brazil and France, Amazonian countries, have decided to join forces to promote an international road map for protection of tropical forests,” they said in a joint statement.
Their pledge to work together to stop deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 to contribute to slowing global warming comes two years before Brazil hosts the COP30 climate negotiations talks in Belem in 2025.
“The presidents expressed their commitment to the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of the world’s tropical forests, and agreed to work on an ambitious agenda, including... developing innovative financial instruments, market mechanisms, and payments for environmental services,” the statement said.
Mr Macron and Mr Lula took a river boat to visit a sustainable development project for producing chocolate on an island near Belem, and met indigenous leaders.
At the event, Mr Macron honoured indigenous leader and environmental campaigner Raoni Metuktire, of the Kayapo people, with the National Order of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order of merit, for his fight in protecting the rainforest and indigenous rights.
Chief Raoni, who became a global reference for campaigning in the 1980s with musician Sting at his side, handed Mr Macron documents denouncing the environmental impact that a planned railway backed by soya bean farmers will have on indigenous people, whom he said have not been freely consulted.
He asked Mr Lula not to approve building the 1,000km railroad, known as Ferrograo, that would lower agribusiness costs for shipping grains from Mato Grosso farm state to Amazon river ports and out to international markets.
Despite past run-ins over the environment, relations between France and Brazil have recovered from a low point in 2019 when Mr Macron led a wave of international pressure on then President Jair Bolsonaro over fires raging in the Amazon. Mr Bolsonaro accused Mr Macron and other Group of Seven countries of treating Brazil like “a colony”.
A French presidential adviser said on March 22: “After a four-year eclipse and a virtual freeze in political relations between our two countries during Bolsonaro’s presidency, we are in the process of relaunching the bilateral relationship and the strategic partnership with Brazil.” REUTERS
