Amazonian Indigenous leaders urge governments to adjust NDCs to achieve 80% protection of Amazonia by 2025 at LACCW 2023

Panamá, Panamá City —Indigenous Representatives of the Amazonia for Life: 80×25 coalition will participate at the Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week 2023 (LACCW 2023) taking place from 23-27 October 2023 with a clear message for governments: Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of the region must include Indigenous Territories in order to avert the current tipping point crisis that threatens the livelihood of 511 indigenous peoples and the largest and most biodiverse continuous forest on Earth.

Currently, less than 1% of financing goes to Indigenous Territories regardless of their high preservation performance. Direct finance is needed urgently. Indigenous leaders are available for press and media looking for Indigenous and Amazonian perspectives on the events of the week:

October 24: La Resiliencia de los Pueblos Indígenas frente a la crisis climática: soluciones y experiencias compartidas: la necesidad de un financiamiento externo. 

Indigenous Representative: Tabea Cacique, Pueblo: Ashéninka de Ucayali, Perú, Consejo Directivo de AIDESEP, panelist.

Time: 12:00 (Panama time).

Place: Marriott Panama Hotel, Contadora Ill

 

October 24: Webinar: The tropical forest tipping point: Fossil fuel and extractive threats to tropical forests and climate in advance of the Summit of the Three Basins

Indigenous Representative: Fany Kuiru, COICA´s General Coordinator, panelist.

Time: 9:00 – 10:00 Eastern Time // 14:00 – 15:00 West Africa Standard Time // 20:00 – 21:00 Western Indonesia Time

Languages: English, with interpretation to French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Bahasa Indonesia

Organizer: Earth Insight

 

October 25: The role of Non-Party Stakeholders in fostering Just, Financed & Inclusive Energy Transitions : A Just Energy Transition Collaboration (JET-Co) Dialogue for LAC.

Indigenous Representative: Fany Kuiru, COICA´s General Coordinator, panelist.

Time: 16.45 – 18:10 (Panama time).

Place: Marriott Panama Hotel, Contadora Ill

Organizers: High-Level Champions, UNFCCC Secretariat

Indigenous Territories to avert the tipping point in Amazonia

Science has established with data, the urgency of stopping the current trend of deterioration of Amazonia as 26% has already been transformed which means that a tipping point is imminent. Amazonia and tropical forests store between 150 and 200 billion tons of carbon that help stabilize the planet’s climate. Ecosystems of high ecological integrity are key to stop the decline in global biodiversity and to face the current climate crisis. Without Amazonia, the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming limited to 1.5°C will be impossible to achieve. Over 500 indigenous nations live in Amazonia, therefore, legal recognition of Indigenous Territories will allow Amazonian governments reach climate and biodiversity goals in the immediate future if they adjust their Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to incorporate Target 3 in their National climate plans.

Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework approved in Montreal in December 2022 is a historical milestone to combat the climate crisis and the tipping point in Amazonia as it included for the first time indigenous and traditional territories as a separate conservation category whose implementation requires “recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.” Indigenous Territories (IT) represent about 22% of the global land surface (UN 2021), are home to 80% of the remaining biodiversity on the planet, and 500 million people accounting for 6.2% of the global population. Yet, Indigenous Peoples receive less than 1% of climate finance. Currently, Indigenous Territories and Protected Areas cover nearly 50% of the region. The Initiative 80% by 2025 has developed a Roadmap to Implement Target 3 that highlights the legal recognition of Indigenous rights and territories as a first step towards ecosystem integrity and the imperative need to finance Indigenous territories with various financial mechanisms as established in Targets 18 and 19 of the GBF. 

About the Amazonia for Life Initiative: protect 80% by 2025

The “Amazonia for Life Initiative” calls for the protection of 80% of the Amazon by 2025 to avert the tipping point in the largest carbon sink on the planet. The initiative is supported by COICA, Stand.earth, RAISG, AVAAZ, Amazon Watch, Wild Heritage, Re:Wild, One Earth, Earth Insight, ORPIA, AIDESEP, CIDOB, COIAB and ANMIGA, the government of Colombia, and more than 1,200 organizations that endorsed the Initiatve since 2021 and, about 50 regional indigenous organizations in the countries that make up the basin. In 2023, the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) urged Amazonian governments to protect 80% by 2025. Currently, Colombia has embraced the target as its official position. 

Website: www.amazonia80x2025.earth 

General information

Amazonia Against the Clock: Where and How to Protect 80% by 2025 is a vital research report that identifies key priority areas where degradation and transformation are occurring at the country level, as well as their drivers. It also outlines the immediate needs and solutions to address the Amazon crisis as an urgent measure to curb the effects of climate change. The report concludes that Brazil is the epicenter of major degradation and deforestation, already causing a tipping point in the southeast of the region. The report’s findings show:

• The tipping point is already transforming rainforest to savannah due to high levels of degradation and deforestation in some areas. Deforestation and degradation combined have reached 26% of the region — the Amazon has begun a dangerous transformation due to its levels of destruction.
• The countries with the highest combined deforestation and degradation rates are: Brazil: 34%, Bolivia: 24%, Ecuador: 16% and Colombia: 14%.
• The agricultural sector is responsible for 84% of deforestation in the Amazon. 
• 88% of the transformation occurs in non-designated areas, beyond Indigenous territories and/or protected areas.
• Debt represents on average 78% of Latin America’s regional GDP, and total debt service alone represents 59% of its exports of goods and services. This reality leads governments to overexploit the Amazon’s natural resources.
• According to the Amazon Against the Clock Report, reaching 80% protection is still feasible by 2025. The remaining 74% (629 million hectares in priority areas) is still standing and requires immediate protection, and 6% of the region can still be restored.

Amazon by the numbers:

• Combined deforestation and degradation have reached 26% of Amazonia.
• Around 137 living species are driven into extinction each day in the Amazonia due to habitat loss.
• The Amazon is the most violent region in the world. 52% of the deaths of environmental defenders and indigenous leaders in the world occur in Brazil and Colombia.
• It’s home to five of the planet’s 17 megadiverse countries. 
• Currently, about 100 million hectares of indigenous lands are under dispute or awaiting legal government recognition. 
• Around 10,000 species in the Amazon are at high risk of extinction. 
• Brazil (34%) and Bolivia (24%) are the countries with the highest loss. 

Loss and Damage Fund: an immediate opportunity to avert the tipping point

A crucial outcome of COP27 was the agreement to create a Loss & Damage Fund to face the destruction caused by climate change occurrences that cannot be prevented or adapted due to a lack of financial means or viable solutions. The Fund expects USD 100 billion a year by 2030, according to the common proposal of the 14 developing countries members of the committee. However, based on modeling of loss and damage in developing countries, think tanks like Boll propose that L&D finance should use then $400 billion USD per year as a floor and acknowledge that financing needs will have to be revised upward over time. 

Within a country, IPLCS must have the priority to direct access to resources as they are at the frontline in biodiversity conservation while suffering the direct impact of biodiversity loss. In Amazonia conservation performance of Indigenous Territories is comparable or higher than Protected Areas without any national or international budgets. Indigenous leaders are being killed to protect key ecosystems and their livelihoods.

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Media contacts: 

• Alicia Guzmán, 80×2025 Initiative Coordinator, from Stand.earth: alicia@stand.earth / +593 98 641 5612
• Bryan Ludeña from COICA: blud1993@gmail.com / +593 98 979 5277
• Lynsey Grosfield from Earth Insight: lynsey@earth-insight.org
• Raúl Estrada from Avaaz: raul.estrada@biodiversity.avaaz.org / +52 5580196422