In response to the fastest and most catastrophic forest losses in history, 47 civil society organizations from Latin America signed and presented a roadmap. Credit: www.parquesnacionales.gov.co
Research by the University of Maryland (UMD) and Global Forest Watch published last year confirmed that the loss of primary tropical forests worldwide increased by 80% between 2023 and 2024, and Latin America was particularly affected.
That drew attention because the region occupies an environmentally privileged position, being home to nearly half of the world’s tropical forests, yet its situation continues to deteriorate.
In response to the fastest and most catastrophic forest losses in history, 47 civil society organizations from Latin America signed and presented a roadmap demanding that forests remain standing.
Among those organizations are the Colombian groups Barranquilla +20, Coalicion Colombiana por el Derecho a la Educacion, Dejusticia, Fundacion Ambiental Mohan-Cuidadores del Agua, Greenpeace Colombia, Instituto Tecnico Industrial Rafael Reyes, and Plantemos.
Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and rural communities first
The first point of the roadmap, which refers to Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI), Afro-descendant peoples, tribal peoples, peasant and rural communities, and traditional and local communities with a direct connection to forests, proposes two goals.
The first is that, by 2030, States must legally protect the territorial rights of Indigenous peoples through the titling, delimitation and demarcation of at least 80% of Indigenous and PIACI territories and, respectively, the territories and lands of Afro-descendant, traditional and tribal communities.
The second is to ensure the full recognition and territorial protection of PIACI, along with the absolute prohibition of any type of outside interference (intangible zones). The region, and specifically the Amazon biome, is home to the largest number of PIACI in the world, yet serious legal and safeguard weaknesses persist and must be addressed.
After placing human beings at the forefront, the roadmap turns to deforestation– and land conversion-free commodity supply chains and the goals that should be achieved in this area.
By 2030, it seeks to ensure that 100% of the agroforestry sectors, particularly timber, soybeans, beef, sugar, coffee and palm oil, as well as large-scale mining and hydrocarbons, incorporate the principle of zero deforestation throughout their value chains, supported by binding regulatory frameworks.
The Amazon and other forest ecosystems around the world
Third, the roadmap focuses on forest finance and the alignment of financial flows. In this area, it sets goals such as mobilizing approximately US$216 billion in additional annual funding for forest conservation and restoration, the bioeconomy, sustainable production chains and the strengthening of enabling conditions through a combination of public, private, concessional and innovative financing by 2030.
It also calls for redirecting harmful public and private financial flows toward forest-compatible activities before 2030, by which time 100% of multilateral banking institutions and climate funds should implement direct access agreements for Indigenous peoples as well as local communities.
“Those of us who defend life propose that countries and decision-makers strengthen their own commitments, governance and partnerships based on these pillars and goals. Although with special attention to the Amazon, these recommendations must go beyond it at the level and speed that the urgency requires and protect all forest ecosystems in the region and around the world,” the NGOs Transforma, Dejusticia and Plataforma CIPO said in an article published in Spain’s newspaper El Pais.
“We therefore hope that this roadmap built from Latin America will serve as a key input for the global roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 that is currently being prepared by Brazil’s presidency of COP30 on climate change,” they added.
Finally, they warned that for a long time the causes of forest loss have not been addressed in a comprehensive manner or with verifiable results, and that it is time for that to change.
“These goals are not intended to open a parallel agenda, but rather to help ensure that existing commitments are translated into concrete actions that countries can take ownership of and that are supported by cooperation, financing and monitoring. From our perspective, Latin America has the opportunity to demonstrate its leadership on this front,” they said.