Progress report for
To promote the protection of the Amazonian Flying Rivers, and to contribute to the safeguard of ecosystem and sociocultural connectivity in hand with indigenous peoples and local communities in the region.
Achievement at a glance
The North Amazon Alliance (ANA) encouraged the inclusion of safeguarding ecosystem and sociocultural connectivity in the Belem Declaration, as a means to secure the water cycle through the mobilization of the amazonian flying rivers, making it a commitment for all Amazonian countries. This was achieved through the development and promotion of a set of recommendations that guided discussions during the Pre-Summit (Leticia) and the Presidents Summit in July and August 2023, respectively.Building upon a previous conceptualization of "local Amazonian economies", the III Regional Meeting "Conversations of the Amazon" took place in Leticia in August 2023. This meeting jointly identified 15 principles ensuring that local Amazonian economies are responsible and appropriate considering the particularities of the Amazon as a region that regulates the rain patterns at a continental level. These principles serve as a key input for relevant discussions in the region, focusing on safeguarding ecosystem and sociocultural connectivity. The meeting facilitated a horizontal dialogue among 40 representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities from the region north of the Amazon River, 8 civil society organizations, and 21 strategic allies representing various stakeholders (private sector, academia, international cooperation, public sector from different countries in the region) from 5 countries. The North Amazon Alliance (ANA) presents Indigenous Food Systems as a guarantee for territorial well-being, biocultural connectivity, and climate resilience within the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), an advisory body for the formulation and monitoring of measures related to the rights of indigenous peoples. This initiative made the connection between Food Systems, territorial health, and indigenous governance evident through the voices of Amazonian indigenous peoples.
A strategic advocacy route towards COP16 in Colombia was agreed upon by the Supervisory Board of the North Amazon Alliance, which is currently being implemented, with concrete advocacy and communications actions around the importance of ecologically, socially and culturally well connected Amazon for the protection of biodiversity in the most extensive and best preserved tropical forest in the world.
15 potential Strategic Territories for Connectivity (SCT) have been identified by the 9 civil society organizations members of ANA. These territories serve as the settings for multi-stakeholder articulation, collaboration, and coordination around safeguarding ecosystemic and sociocultural connectivity in a specific area encompassing various protection measures, as well as instances and stakeholders. This involves actions at the territorial, subnational, and/or transboundary levels, within a regional vision aimed at protecting the integrity of the Amazon on a large scale.
The North Amazon Alliance established a regional knowledge management working group and strengthens the subregional structure through focal points, consolidating the regional knowledge management strategic line.
The Alliance provides support to ORPIA, the regional organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon in Venezuela, by holding joint workshops where ORPIA structures its work plan.
The processes of Amazonian indigenous women is strengthened , increasing their organizational and leadership capacities for project formulation and management as part of the implementation of the advocacy participation route and priority actions in territorial policies
Challenges faced in implementation
- Coordination with governments and among Amazonian countries- Setback of environmental policies under the previous president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, leading to emergencies and humanitarian crises for Amazonian indigenous peoples like the Yanomami.
- Ensuring indigenous knowledge systems inform appropriate policies for the Amazon region and its populations, and in programs to be implemented in the region.
- Illegal economies - pressures and threats (mercury pollution, deforestation, degradation) and associated armed conflicts.
- The most severe drought in the history of the Amazon region took place in 2023.
- The development model for the Amazon is being debated by decision-makers without considering local perspectives.
- Global trend of right-wing governments disregarding the climate crisis.
- Limited capacity for implementation and monitoring by Amazonian governments of actions taken in their territories.
Next Steps
Preparations for COP 16: The North Amazon Alliance will participate in the 2024 Biodiversity COP16 taking place in Cali, Colombia in October 2024. The purpose is to emphasize the importance of a well-connected Amazon (ecologically, socially and culturally) for biodiversity protection in the world's largest and best-preserved tropical forest through side events and documents providing analysis and recommendations. This is closely linked to regulating the water cycle, because biodiverse forest ecosystems are more resilient and capable of regulating water cycles by absorbing and transpiring moisture as water vapor, influencing rainfall patterns on a continental scale.Conversations of the Amazon 2024: in August the IV Regional Meeting organized by ANA will address territory protection through monitoring, control, and surveillance strategies. The event will involve territorial experiences contributing to preserving ecosystem and sociocultural connectivity in 5 Amazonian countries. These experiences serve as scalable solutions and potential regional references for Amazon protection, ensuring water cycle regulation.
Dialogue with the Amazonian Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG): The two regional networks will engage in a horizontal dialogue to identify collaboration opportunities.This aims to respond to the opportunities presented by the two biodiversity and climate change COPs in the region in consecutive years (Colombia and Brazil).
Participation in COP29 and COP30: ANA is preparing to participate for the first time in the Climate Change COP with the aim of informing climate discussions from a regionalized amazonian connectivity perspective. ANA considers it important for the global climate discussion which currently revolves around emissions and compensations, to redirect towards addressing concrete solutions to the climate crisis that involve the protection of key bioregions such as the large tropical forest areas of the world. Addressing this perspective is urgent, as making strong global decisions to ensure the protection of these forests at a time when studies indicate that regions like the Amazon are no longer recovering as quickly from the impacts of climate change such as severe droughts and floods.
”Canoita” Isana: cross-border exchanges through which cooperation agreements between indigenous organizations and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela are defined, aim to coordinate actions for biocultural conservation and shared management of indigenous territories, involving governments and CSOs, as a prelude to regional meetings. The next Canoita Isana will take place in July 2024, in the Jerusalem community in Brazil. Prioritized topics: health, priority issues for women, exchange of knowledge on artisanal topics, seeds, sacred sites, food systems, which will contribute to a shared management of the Isana basin to address the effects of climate change, enabling comprehensive forest management based on the traditional knowledge.
Follow-up on the Belém Declaration: Colombia undertook the commitment to host the 2nd Presidents' Summit in August 2025, where follow-up of the Declaration for the protection of this bio-region will take place. For ANA, this space is an appropriate platform to continue pushing forward for a regional approach based on ecosystem and sociocultural connectivity as the most effective strategy to ensure this region continues to play a regulatory role in continental water cycles.
Beneficiaries
Since the members of the North Amazon Alliance work hand in hand with indigenous organizations in the region, where many of these are authorities in their territories, we prefer not to refer to the populations we work with as beneficiaries, as our organizations have horizontal collaboration agreements with them. As an alliance, we promote horizontal dialogues amongst diverse stakeholders, so we will refer in this section to these as stakeholders, as follows: - Civil Society Organizations members of ANA - Territorial indigenous organizations in Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil - Strategic allies from other civil society organizations (CSO) and governmental institutions in these countries
Actions
Conversations of the Amazon 2023: 40 indigenous and local community representatives from the Amazon, 20 strategic allies from the private sector, governments and research centers, and eight civil society organizations -seven of them members of the North Amazon Alliance- met in Leticia to share and exchange around 17 experiences of cultural and economic value based on products, services and livelihood systems, which represent long term territorial processes implemented by indigenous peoples and local communities, based on their own knowledge systems. 15 principles where jointly identified which define local Amazonian economies, for them to guarantee the health and connectivity of the Amazon and the wellbeing of its peoples.Reactivation of the Cooperation Agreements in the North-West Amazon CANOA: since 2023, cross-border meetings have been held in the indigenous transboundary territories of the Tiquié and Isana rivers. In Tiquié, aim to identify historical agreements that have ensured territorial management in ecosystem, social, and cultural terms, and to establish a dialogue, and a possible path towards shared management for safeguarding connectivity as an example of territories connected at a regional scale to define strategies for mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
Identification of Strategic Connectivity Territories (SCT) with the technical teams of the members of the ANA: With the aim of maintaining, strengthening, and/or restoring ecosystemic, social, and cultural connectivity in prioritized territories, at a landscape scale, through strategies and actions linked at different levels, involving various actors and focused on ensuring forest health and community well-being, the eight CSOs that make up ANA carried out a series of exchanges during the first half of 2024 to define, prioritize, and establish criteria to determine these areas and measure their contribution to safeguarding connectivity in the region north of the Amazon River; thus, they have been termed Strategic Territories for Connectivity. Currently. Progress has been made in the initial identification of 15 potential SCTs
Pre-Summit and Summit of Presidents:In early 2023, the governments of Brazil and Colombia convened the Amazonian countries to hold a Presidents' Summit in August to discuss the protection of the Amazon. In preparation for this event, the Colombian government hosted a Pre-Summit in Leticia.
The NorAmazon Alliance compiled a set of recommendations aimed at Presidents and decision-makers, regarding key elements to consider in discussions between governments to ensure the protection of the Amazon's integrity. During the Pre-Summit in Leticia (Amazonas, Colombia), a side-event was organized involving indigenous leaders from Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and Colombia, coordinating their participation in the Presidents' Summit in Belém do Pará among its members and other strategic allies. As a result, a commitment to safeguarding ecosystemic and sociocultural connectivity among the signing governments was included in the Belém Declaration.
The outcomes of this effort are reflected in the statement issued at the end of the Summit, formally known as the Belém Declaration, in which the eight governments of Amazonian countries comprising the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) pledged to "ensure the conservation, protection, and ecosystemic and sociocultural connectivity of the Amazon."