At their first summit focused on the Amazon in nearly 15 years, eight South American countries pledged this week to work together to combat deforestation. While they revived a key treaty organization in this new united front, environmentalists have expressed frustration at the lack of concrete goals and timeframes. Most notably, the agreement does not set a specific deadline for completely ending deforestation, nor does it identify a common target, leaving individual countries to pursue and be accountable for their own goals.

eight South American countries pledged this week to work together to combat deforestation

“It has never been more urgent to resume and expand this cooperation. The challenges of our era and the opportunities that arise demand joint action,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in opening remarks on Tuesday.

The meeting, held in the Brazilian city of Belém, came on the heels of some promising news. A recent report from the Brazilian government found that the amount of rainforest cleared in July was down 66 percent compared to one year before, and is at its lowest rate in six years.

Yet that development is a small comfort in the face of the climate crisis. Last month was also the hottest month on record globally, and by a wide margin. Scientists believe that this is largely due to human-driven global warming, a trend that is inextricably linked to the fate of the Amazon rainforest. The rainforest absorbs one-fourth of the CO2 absorbed by all the land on Earth, and its persistent loss helps push the world toward an irrevocable disaster. The Amazon is also one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

A 2022 report from the Amazonia for Life 80% by 2025 initiative estimated that 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has suffered “irreversible land use change” and another 6 percent has been “highly degraded” since 1985, driven by a combination of cattle farming, the building of new infrastructure, illegal mining, oil blocks, hydroelectric plants and other activity.

“When we look at the urgency of reducing the deforestation of the Amazon, [we want to] avoid what is called by scientists ‘the tipping point.’ [Doing so is so] important and so urgent that it’s impossible that one country will do it alone. Cooperation between the countries of the Amazon, with the support of other countries outside, is now a critical step,” said Mauricio Voivodic, the executive director of the World Wide Fund for Nature – Brazil.

The new Belém Declaration creates an alliance between Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, who are members of the revived Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization. The ACTO nations have also called on industrialized nations to do more to preserve this natural resource, according to the Associated Press. When the nations of the world meet to discuss climate policy at COP28 in November, this alliance may give them a stronger chorus to advocate for Amazon protections.

The new Belém Declaration creates an alliance between Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela

“The Amazon still requires a lot of investment. And if we can make it in a structured way through policies and cooperation between the different governments, then we can ensure [long-term reduction in deforestation] is successful,” Voivodic said. “This would represent longevity because then the economic development of the region would no longer depend on predatory activities.”

Indigenous people from Amazonian countries and other activists took part in a march in Belém while the summit convened Tuesday. Home to almost 2.7 million Indigenous people, the Amazon has been historically exploited and colonized often without regard for or collaboration with the rights of those people.

“The big question is, will governments really put Indigenous people’s survival and well-being ahead of profit? That’s the big question,” said Sarah Shenker, a campaigner with Survival International, a London-based human rights organization focused on the land rights of indigenous peoples. “And so far, all the countries where there’s Amazon rainforests have shown that that’s not the case.”

Here’s a deeper look at the significance of this alliance.

Why these nations are working together, and some of the challenges they face

ACTO was formed in 1995 to protect and manage the Amazon. The group aimed to recognize the reality that the Amazon rainforest crossed borders and needed international management, but also to protect the Amazon countries’ sovereignty over their territory.

When governments change hands, policies on the Amazon can also dramatically shift. When Brazil’s previous president, Jair Bolsonaro, was in office, he opened up reserves, which had been set aside as Indigenous land, for mining, leading to further deforestation and protests from local environmental groups, as well as the international community.

“You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil’s, not yours [the international community]. It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is a heritage of humankind,” Bolsonaro stated at a UN General Assembly meeting in 2019. Under his leadership, deforestation hit an almost 15-year high, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research.

President Lula de Silva defeated Bolsonaro in a presidential election in 2022, and reversed many of his predecessor’s policies. His government has pledged to end deforestation by 2030, and he had urged fellow members of ACTO to adopt the same goal.

If the people and their governments recognize the value of these forests as a public good, then protecting them will become essential, said Matthew Potts, a forest economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Chief Science Officer at Carbon Direct.

Despite international collaboration, some South American governments are up against criminal organizations running multi-billion-dollar industries dealing in illegal trade in wildlife and timber. Gangs have also infiltrated some regions with poor government services, high inequality and widespread poverty, leading to havoc for both local communities and the environment.

Home to almost 2.7 million Indigenous people, the Amazon has been historically exploited and colonized often without regard for or collaboration with the rights of those people.

Critics say the way governments respond to these challenges is too often siloed. Different NGOs and companies address individual issues affecting deforestation in the Amazon region.

“That siloed approach is at odds with the reality of the overlapping and complex, integrated nature of crime itself,” said Robert Muggah, co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think tank, as well as the SecDev Group, a data science company. “A big challenge is how do we get organizations, not just to cooperate across borders and to organize themselves internally, but to be able to adopt coordinated efforts. And we’re starting to see that.”

Narco-deforestation, an infamous phenomenon in South American countries, involves funneling drug profits into environmental crimes like land grabs, illegal mining, poaching and illicit logging.

Narco-deforestation, an infamous phenomenon in South American countries, involves funneling drug profits into environmental crimes like land grabs, illegal mining, poaching and illicit logging.

The direct effects of the South American drug trade on deforestation may seem limited, but the effects through narco-deforestation are significant. These criminal networks span different countries, and curtailing these predatory activities is impossible without money and influence from governmental powers.

A lack of government enforcement does not incentivize businesses or communities to plan for long-term stewardship, Potts said. He noted that Indigenous communities that have inhabited the area for generations have lifestyles that naturally protect and sustain the Amazon ecosystem.

“The best way to protect the Amazon rainforest is to uphold the land rights of Indigenous peoples because Indigenous peoples are living in the most biodiverse places on Earth, and they are the best guardians of those forests. They’ve looked after those areas for generations better than anybody else possibly could,” said Shenker.

High-tech and traditional solutions

The Amazon covers 1.2 million square miles, equal to the combined size of the four largest U.S. states (Alaska, Texas, California and Montana). In such a massive area, being able to detect deforestation at the smallest scale can help authorities take swift action.

Governments, non-profit organizations, and activists are increasingly benefiting from improved alert and response capacities enabled by cutting-edge technologies, experts told the PBS NewsHour. The real time images and data from satellite monitoring, sensors and AI technology can help them track illegal activity.

“The good news is that there is a bewildering array of different innovations being tested throughout the Amazon basin, and a lot of this innovation has been taking place within the last decade,” Muggah said.

Muggah, who specializes in security, climate action and digital transformation, says that innovative tools such as remote sensing (via satellite imagery and use of drones), machine learning, and cloud computing are becoming indispensable in mapping and predicting risks to the rainforest.

The Brazilian space agency INPE employs satellite-based systems providing rapid alerts about deforestation patterns. These tools helped detect the more than 60 percent drop in deforestation in the Amazon compared to the previous year.

Muggah, who specializes in security, climate action and digital transformation, says that innovative tools such as remote sensing (via satellite imagery and use of drones), machine learning, and cloud computing are becoming indispensable in mapping and predicting risks to the rainforest.

“There are dozens of interesting things happening, maybe even hundreds of innovations [through private companies and governments], but I think we’re going to see even more,” Muggah said. “It’s really explosive growth. The challenge for a lot of the NGOs [is], how do you scale? It’s great to set up a new platform or to set up a new project with a small group of, say, forest defenders, but is that going to generate the scale and impact that we really need urgently.”

Ultimately, long-term success hinges on investing in sustainable forest resources, particularly by and for local communities and Indigenous groups. The new Belém Declaration emphasizes rights and protections for Native people, an inclusion that Indigenous groups are reportedly celebrating.

“I’m more optimistic now than I have been the last five years. I think what’s important to stress is that with good, positive and focused leadership, we can actually tackle many of these challenges fairly rapidly…[but] declarations are one thing, enforcing them and financing them is another,” Muggah said.