BRAZIL’S President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva met with his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro on Saturday to build momentum for a critical regional summit about the Amazon rainforest next month. 

The meeting took place in Colombia’s Leticia, in the Amazon’s triple border region between Colombia, Brazil and Peru, where organised crime has recently increased.

The meeting aimed to lay groundwork for August’s Amazon Summit the Brazilian government is organising in Belem. 

The summit will be attended by leaders of the countries party to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation, made up of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

Lula is pushing for a joint declaration from the summit, which would be presented at the United Nations climate conference, known as Cop28, in Dubai in November.

“We will have to demand together that rich countries fulfil their commitments,” Lula said in Leticia, sitting next to President Petro.

Mr Petro also stressed the need for a common front to exert pressure on developed countries. 

“We believed that progress was the destruction of trees, but today that is nothing other than the destruction of life,” he said.

The Colombian leader said tackling the climate crisis will require spending trillions of dollars. This could be achieved by transforming the global debt system and “trading debt for climate action,” he said.

The final document will comprise measures for the sustainable development of the Amazon, protecting the biome, and promoting social inclusion, science, technology and innovation while valuing indigenous peoples and their knowledge, Brazil’s presidential palace said in a statement.

“Joint action of the countries that share the Amazon biome is fundamental for facing the multiple challenges in the region” the statement said.

One challenge faced is the tightened grip of organised crime, particularly in tri-border regions like where Leticia is located. 

Indigenous groups are “disproportionately affected” by organised crime in the Amazon, leading to forced displacements, mercury poisoning and other health-related impacts as well as increased exposure to violence.

In 2019, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Guyana and Suriname signed the Leticia Pact to strengthen coordinated actions for the preservation of the natural resources of the Amazon.

Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, an umbrella organisation of environmental groups, said: “It’s a letter of ambition. We hope that in Leticia they [presidents Lula and Petro] will increase and clarify their ambitions.”

Since taking office in January, Lula has put environmental protection and respect for indigenous peoples’ rights at the heart of his third term.