Paris (AFP)

A delegation from Guyana will accompany Emmanuel Macron to the special climate summit next Monday at the UN, where he will announce his plan for the Amazon rainforest, said Tuesday the Minister of Overseas National Assembly.

In late August, the French president had made fires that are currently devastating the Amazon rainforest, especially in Brazil, one of the priorities of the G7 summit in Biarritz. "We are all concerned, France is probably even more so than others around this table, since we are Amazonian" with Guyana, he said.

Guyana, located in eastern Amazonia, is 98% forested.

The Guyanese delegation, led by the president of the community of Guyana Rodolphe Alexandre, will also include the president of the Grand Council customary Amerindian populations and Bushmen of Guyana, Sylvio Van Der Pijl. It will also include the president of the Amazon Park, the largest park in the European Union covering 34,000 km2, said Ms Girardin in response to LREM MEP Jennifer de Temmerman.

The presence of such a delegation "is a great first and it is important. (...) I have always said that the Overseas Territories were territories of excellence, territories of solutions and that is often from these territories that we can radiate throughout the world, "insisted the minister.

She said that "the plan for the Amazon rainforest" would be discussed Wednesday at Matignon, within an interministerial committee overseas, chaired by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

In late August, the minister and elected officials of Guyana, as well as the president of the Grand Council customary, had signed a joint forum, calling for the creation of an international fund "against forest fires and for reforestation".

But in another forum, the Great Customary Council had pointed out that fire was "not the only danger that threatens or destroys the Amazon", pointing to "extractivism (industrial exploitation of nature)" which "has great share of responsibility ".

The Grand Council customary regretted that Emmanuel Macron has "allocated 360,000 hectares of forest mining multinationals in Guyana."

© 2019 AFP