Global ecological catastrophe: 26% of the Amazon is lost forever

“Red Alert” in Amazonia as nearly a quarter of the planet’s green lung ecosystem has been irreparably damaged by deforestation, drug trafficking and pollution.

As indigenous leaders warned on Tuesday – at their meeting in Lima, Peru – the Amazon infected and damaged by 26%.

“We are sending a red alert when we say that if we do nothing now, we will not achieve the 2030 development goals or those of the major agreements concluded at the Glasgow COP,” Gregorio Mirabal from Venezuela, who heads the Coordination of Organizations body, told AFP. Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon Basin (COICA), which represents 3.5 million indigenous people who live in the region.

According to Gregorio Mirabal, in the Amazon Basin there are approximately 511 indigenous peoples and 500 different languages ​​are spoken.

Meeting for the 5th Summit of Indigenous Peoples, Amazonian leaders and researchers from 9 countries and regions presented a report showing that the Amazon is at an irreversible point due to high rates of deforestation and degradation that together now account for 26 % of the area.

The remaining 74% is in immediate need of protection, the report underlines.

Another problem raised at the summit: the killings of Amazon activists and leaders, which number more than 280 in the nine countries and territories that cover the Amazon rainforest.

“The Amazon is suffering because we are being invaded by logging, oil companies and those who invade our lands. We want to appeal for help,” Brazilian Marceli Tupari, of the Coordinating Organization of Amazonian Indigenous Organizations in Brazil, told AFP.

The nine countries and territories of the Amazon are Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana (France) and Suriname.

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.