A regional pact for the conservation of the Amazon. This is essentially the proposal made by Colombian President Ivan Duque on Sunday 25 August. This suggestion is to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September in response to fires affecting the "lungs" of the planet.

"We want to fly a conservation pact between the countries that share this Amazonian territory," said the head of state in the indigenous village of Isla Ronda, in the extreme south of the country, in the department of Amazonas bordering Peru and Brazil.

Sound the alarm

"Currently we do not have a fire situation comparable to that of Brazil, but we must guard and this visit aims to sound the alarm," said Ivan Duque.

Before presenting his proposal to the UN, the right-wing Colombian President will put this pact on the table at the binational Council of Ministers he will hold next Tuesday with his Peruvian counterpart Martin Vizcarra in Pucallpa (central-eastern Peru).

On Saturday, Ivan Duque had already launched since Cali "a call to the international community to understand that in addition to speeches, resources and scientific support are needed to preserve our Amazonian lung".

drops

After talking with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro over the phone, Ivan Duque said the funds would also be used to fight transnational crime linked to the trafficking of species in the "lungs of the planet".

In addition to Colombia and Brazil, the Amazon rainforest covers Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname and Ecuador.

The number of fires increased by 1,130 throughout Brazil in 24 hours, according to the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe). The latest figures on Saturday night show 79,513 forest fires since the beginning of the year in this country, including just over half in the Amazon.

Under international pressure, and as the G7 put the subject on its agenda, Brazil ended up in action Sunday in the Amazon, two C-130 Hercules aircraft dropping the first tens of thousands of liters of water at above the tropical forest.

With AFP