Paris (AFP)
French Guiana elected officials and French Minister of Overseas Annick Girardin on Sunday called for the creation of an international fund "against forest fires and reforestation" while the fires raging in the Amazon caused an emotion planetary.
"France, country of Amazonia, preserve this common good of humanity", is titled their tribune published by the Journal du Dimanche and which recalls that Guyana, French territory of South America, is touched directly by these fires.
"The Amazonian forest, which covers nine countries including France, has lost more than 550,000 km2 in the last ten years", and after a moratorium of several years, deforestation has begun to accelerate, "mainly in Brazil" , deplore the signatories of the tribune.
"These lost hectares are all carbon sinks annihilated, it is an exceptional biodiversity that disappears little by little," they add, applauding the refusal of Mr. Macron to ratify the current EU trade agreement. Mercosur.
They therefore argue for an "international fund, which would not be directly dependent on the States, and which could launch concrete, punctual actions, targeted directly at local actors, against forest fires and for reforestation".
The signatories also ask "the European Union to double its inter-regional development fund dedicated to biodiversity and development of the Amazon".
© 2019 AFP