Latin America Tackles Deforestation at Amazon Summit

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization’s two-day summit in Brazil, Russian missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians, and the Central African Republic’s new presidential term limits.

On Tuesday, members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), Latin America’s largest environmental bloc, met in Belém, Brazil, for a two-day summit to further regional cooperation, battle climate change and deforestation, and strengthen Indigenous protections. This is the first time the body, composed of eight Amazon rainforest nations—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela—has convened in 14 years, and only the fourth time in its 45-year history. The last time the organization met, the only ACTO member with a president in attendance other than the summit’s host, Brazil, was Guyana.

“It has never been so urgent to resume and expand that cooperation,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “The challenge of our era and the opportunities that arise will demand joint action.”

Around 130 issues are on the bloc’s agenda, from economics to sustainability. But deforestation and oil drilling are at the top of the list. At last month’s pre-summit meeting in Colombia, Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged Lula to halt a new offshore drilling site near the mouth of the Amazon River. Brazil was the ninth-largest oil producer in the world in 2022, ahead of Kuwait and just behind Iran. “Are we going to let hydrocarbons be explored in the Amazon rainforest?” Petro asked. “Is there wealth there, or is there the death of humanity?”

Petro and other Latin American leaders hope to decrease oil drilling as a means of reducing deforestation. Last year alone, almost 10.2 million acres of primary rainforest was lost worldwide, according to the World Resources Institute—the equivalent of losing 11 soccer fields’ worth of trees every minute. Both Brazil and Colombia have pledged to stop deforestation by 2030, but other ACTO members have been slow to take up the pledge. And Lula is battling years of catastrophic environmental policies established under former President Jair Bolsonaro.

In a further blow to the summit’s effectiveness, not all eight members are in attendance. Both Ecuador and Suriname sent senior representatives instead of their nations’ leaders, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro canceled at the last minute due to an ear infection. Still, Brazil is hoping to encourage the other ACTO nations in attendance to sign the Belém Declaration, a list of collaborative strategies for combatting carbon emissions. The document would also create an international police center in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon, to promote interstate cooperation to combat organized crime in the region.

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Back-to-back assaults. A double Russian missile strike hit the city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Monday, killing around eight people and injuring at least 81 others. Many of the victims were first responders and journalists who had rushed to the scene after the first explosion, and five of the individuals killed were civilians. Numerous apartments and the popular Druzhba Hotel, one of the few operating hotels near the front lines, were destroyed.

Russia’s continued targeting of civilians under President Vladimir Putin’s command has catalyzed international outrage. Since Moscow’s invasion began in February 2022, at least 78 rescuers have been killed in Ukraine while responding to missile strikes. And around 8,490 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian troops, though the United Nations estimates that the total is likely thousands more. However, compiling evidence of war crimes and establishing the proper court to try them has become a complex legal conundrum. “The quickest path to justice for Ukraine may not have the widest international support, or the best way to go after Putin himself,” wrote FP’s Robbie Gramer. “And the path with the most global support and best chance of nabbing Putin will take the longest.”

Constitutional crisis. The results are in, and President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of the Central African Republic has a bright future ahead of him. On Monday, the nation’s electoral authority announced the passage of a constitutional referendum that scraps the current two-term presidential limit—meaning Touadéra can now run for a third time. Around 95 percent of voters supported the bill; however, critics claim that turnout was as low as 10 percent. The new law would also extend the president’s mandate from five to seven years and ban politicians with dual citizenship from running for office unless they renounce citizenship in their other home nation.

Touadéra has repeatedly faced criticism over his close ties with Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group and the Kremlin more broadly. Moscow continues to send weapons and military instructors to the Central African Republic to back Touadéra in his fight against rebels in the country’s ongoing civil war. In exchange, Touadéra has given Wagner lucrative mining concessions in gold and diamonds.

Fed up with gangs. Cries for better security echoed in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday as thousands of residents marched through the capital to protest gang violence. Among their top demands, they urged the government to provide better police protection against organized crime. The next day, gunfire near the U.S. Embassy in Haiti shuttered the consulate’s operations.

Since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, gangs have taken control of around 80 percent of the island’s capital. For months, Haiti begged the international community to help curb the country’s violence by sending in foreign troops. However, no one jumped in to lead the charge. Until last week, that is, when Kenya offered to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti. However, fears that Kenya’s police will do more harm than good—specifically over the force’s history of human rights abuses—remain prevalent.

Calling all Mystery Inc. wannabes! Scotland’s Loch Ness Centre is urging all “budding monster hunters” to join the largest search for the infamously elusive sea creature since 1972. The organization will use drones that produce thermal imaging, as well as a hydrophone to detect acoustics under the water. Hopefully you’ll have better loch—er, luck—than this decadeslong hunter for Nessie.