(22 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bogotá, Colombia— 22 August 2025
1. The presidents of Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, and the vice president of Ecuador arriving at the venue where the Amazon Summit is being held at the Presidential Palace
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia:
"I am in complete solidarity with the position of the Amazonian indigenous communities in the sense that there can be no exploitation of hydrocarbons and extraction in the Amazon rainforest, because otherwise we are evading the problem and condemning ourselves to the old era, and the old era will crush us all."
3. Arrival of Brazilian Indigenous people
4. Indigenous people from Colombia
5. President Petro and President Lula receiving gifts from the Afro-Colombian community
6. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil:
"We are aware of the enormous responsibility we have as Amazonian countries. We will continue to work together to prevent the Amazon from reaching the point of no return. We will combat organized crime and ensure dignity for the millions of people who live here."
7. Presidents at the venue for the final declaration of the summit
STORYLINE:
Presidents from South America’s Amazon nations gathered Friday alongside Indigenous leaders to agree on a joint plan to safeguard the world’s largest rainforest — a vast region seen as crucial to slowing global warming.
Gathering in Colombia’s capital of Bogota, the presidents of Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia joined the vice president of Ecuador and other top officials from Amazon nations.
“We are aware of the enormous responsibility we have as Amazonian countries," Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said during his declaration. "We will continue to work together to prevent the Amazon from reaching the point of no return.”
They signed off on the “Declaration of Bogota,” a political blueprint to be formally adopted by Amazon nations, setting out a common vision for deeper cooperation across the region, which sprawls over more than 2.5 million square miles (6.7 million square kilometers).
Ecuador’s Vice President María José Pinto urged leaders to move beyond “good intentions” to “concrete actions” to protect the Amazon, calling it both the region’s responsibility and its legacy to the world.
She said work must be led from the territories, listening to communities and respecting ancestral knowledge, and stressed the rainforest should be central to the global agenda because “what happens here determines the future of everyone.”
On the eve of the summit, foreign ministers from the eight members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization — a little-known, decades-old intergovernmental body linking all the countries of the Amazon basin — approved 20 resolutions.
They range from a new regional Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism to initiatives on food security, climate risk and institutional strengthening.
Scientists say the Amazon acts as a massive carbon sink absorbing more carbon dioxide than it releases and plays a key role in regulating rainfall patterns far beyond South America.
Its loss could accelerate global warming and disrupt agriculture as far away as the U.S. Midwest and parts of Europe, while threatening the survival of thousands of species found nowhere else on Earth.
Top officials also met on Thursday to review progress on commitments made at the Belem Declaration, a 2023 agreement signed in Brazil that pledged closer coordination on protecting the Amazon, including policies on deforestation, climate change and Indigenous rights.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/b0625283badb43f5b1fb20c360cbd778
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in August 28, 2025, 12:05 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
