A call from the Amazon to build an Agreement for Life in the face of climate and ecological collapse

Without Amazon there is no solution to the climate crisis. Without a solution to the global climate crisis, it will not be possible to save the Amazon. Therefore, from the XI FOSPA (Pan-Amazonian Social Forum) we call on our sisters and brothers from all continents to build an Agreement for Life in the face of climate, and ecological collapse of the planet. An agreement from the grassroots, in minga, from our feeling and thinking in collaborative work, to realize the urgent demand to «change the capitalist system and not the climate», to build territories free of oil extraction, mining, deforestation, agribusiness, pollution, false solutions, free trade, racism, colonialism, transgenics, pesticides, mega infrastructure projects, multiple violence, militarization, genocide, and terricide. A Systemic Agreement that takes up the ancestral practices of food production that are carried out in territories such as the Amazon, and extends our alternatives of territorial, food, and energy sovereignty, promoting the advances achieved in the Yasuní referendum in Ecuador, in the declaration of Palos Blancos as an agroecological Bolivian municipality free of mining, in the mobilization for a Panama free of mining, and in the struggle against all types of genocide, such as the one suffered by the Palestinian people.

The Paris Agreement has failed. Until 2023, governments will reduce only one-tenth of the 24 giga-tons that we must reduce globally to curb the temperature increase that already exceeded 1.5ºC in 2023. The corporate capture of climate negotiations seeks to hide the urgent warnings from the scientific community that we are entering uncharted territory where extreme and unpredictable climate events predominate. The Conferences of the Parties on climate change speak of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but do not establish binding commitments to reduce fossil fuels, deforestation, and the transformation of unsustainable production, consumption, and distribution patterns. This omission is not accidental because the governments of the planet are captured by the logic of capital and do not seek a transition to overcome the capitalist, extractivist, patriarchal, and irrational modernity system.

We are aware of the diversity of strategies and initiatives against the climate crisis. We recognize the efforts of those who, for decades, have focused on achieving progress in the negotiations at the Conferences of the Parties on climate change . Still, today it is clear that the real and effective solutions will come from our struggles, from our territories, from our experience, from our capacity for self-management and from our alternatives.

We propose to all the social movements and organizations of the planet to build a systemic Agreement so that, together we can achieve a solution to climate change:

1. Let us promote mobilization actions to stop new investments, exploration and exploitation of oil, coal and natural gas. In the Amazon region, oil fields increased by 13% between 2012 and 2020, occupying 9.4% of the Amazon area, covering more than half of the Ecuadorian Amazon and about a third in the case of Peru and Colombia. For us, the struggle against oil expansion, the de-installation of oil exploitations, and the reparation of nature and the affected peoples is a struggle for survival. There is no more time if we want to avoid the points of no return on the planet. We need binding and binding commitments from each country, particularly from the major world powers, to reduce 21 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
2. Let us stop the deforestation of forests by exercising our rights over our territories, our living spaces and our capacity for self-management. Let us forge the broadest mobilization to: (a) annul and repeal country regulations that encourage and are permissive of deforestation and forest fires, (b) establish strict regulations on activities that cause deforestation including sanctions, controls and cumulative and comprehensive environmental impact studies, (c) title/demarcate the lands and territories of indigenous peoples and other traditional communities, (d) revert to the States the land of large and medium-sized cattle ranching and agribusiness properties that deforest, e) strengthen protected areas and create new ones under shared management with indigenous peoples, f) sanction public and private, national and international financial entities that finance deforestation projects, g) establish prohibitions in national regulations on the export and import of deforesting products, and h) promote practices that reduce and eliminate the use of fire in agricultural activities.
3. Let us promote food sovereignty and agroecology to cool the planet, we will safeguard the centers of origin, domestication and diversity of food and traditional medicines to feed ourselves in a healthy way without further degrading or polluting soils, water, biodiversity and Nature. Let us strengthen local and diverse food consumption, free of pesticides and transgenic seeds, produced by peasants, family farmers, and indigenous communities. Let us stop the expansion of the agricultural frontier, particularly cattle ranching, African palm, soy, corn, sugar cane, biofuels, and other corporate monoculture plantations, and let us dismantle the food chains controlled by transnational corporations that amass huge fortunes by heating the planet.
4. Let us implement a just, popular energy transition in harmony with nature for and towards energy sovereignty: a) let us guarantee the human and peoples’ right to energy, b) let us resize and redistribute energy consumption equitably, c) let us dismantle the logic of business and energy monopoly at the service of transnationals, d) let us reverse the extractivist and productivist logic of always generating more energy for an unsustainable growth of commodity production, e) promote social participation and control in the democratic management of energy, and f) promote public transportation based on alternative energies and do not fall into the deception that we can face the climate crisis based on individual electric cars that trigger new processes of mining extractivism or agrofuels, and g) stop the construction of new mega-projects and emitting infrastructures. The energy transition must repair the damage of the past and secure the livelihoods of workers and communities in the future, addressing the necessary shift from an extractive economy to a climate-safe society, to build economic and political power for a regenerative economy.
5. Reject false climate solutions and mechanisms of flexibilization, commodification, and offsetting, such as carbon and biodiversity offset certificates. The mechanisms of financialization of the misnamed «environmental services» of Nature, such as the REDD+ Initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) seek to generate new sources of speculative profit for a capitalism in crisis and far from cooling the planet generate conflicts in indigenous and traditional populations, enrich intermediaries in the carbon markets, and establish mechanisms to evade the mandatory reduction commitments of polluting countries and companies, violating human rights and the rights of nature. Indigenous peoples and communities that conserve and protect forests and nature must have direct economic support mechanisms provided by States and international organizations that do not depend on speculative markets for climate, water, and biodiversity. We also reject the false technological solutions of geoengineering the planet, carbon storage and capture, transgenesis, gene editing , etc.
6. Let us fight to eliminate budgets for militarism and war, and allocate those resources to alleviate the situation of the countries most affected by climate change. Let us allocate the trillions of dollars consumed in the arms race to: a) prevent the escalation of socio-environmental catastrophes and alleviate the situation of millions of climate refugees, b) strengthen the transition of urban spaces and mega-metropolises that are unmanageable in contexts of climate collapse, and c) strengthen the actions of indigenous peoples, peasants and communities that preserve our forests, water, seeds and Nature, adopting public policies to support the guardians of the commons. Cancel the foreign debt of countries affected by the climate crisis in order to allocate these resources under social control to address climate emergencies. All financial aid must be outside of debt mechanisms, the issuance of carbon equivalent compensation certificates, the transfer of technology and anti-ecological investments that worsen environmental crises. The powers and elites of the countries must pay the ecological and climate debt they owe to the peoples of the world.
7. Let us depatriarchalize our societies, guaranteeing women’s rights and preventing their eco-social dynamics from being masculinized. No to the mandate of exploitation and conquest. We want lives free of feminicidal, epistemicidal, ecocidal, genocidal and criminal violence. We demand depatriarchalized territories where it is possible to sustain life. We reaffirm that the solution to climate collapse is only possible by promoting sustainable models of life that encourage a straightforward, simple, and frugal life, based on care for others and Nature, and discouraging the production and luxury consumption of unsustainable perishable goods and the overproduction of manufactures that threaten the survival of life on the planet, and exceed the limits of planet Earth.
8. Let us stop the advance of neo-fascisms that encourage wars against peoples and Nature. Stop climate denialism.  Let us fight for peace as a condition «without condition» to confront the climate crisis, and transform the current government regimes into true participatory democracies, free of manipulation, corruption, prebendalism and subjugation to any foreign power. Let us defend the full protection, freedom of movement and civil, political and economic rights of migrants. In our unity and organization lies the strength to stop ecocides, ethnocides, genocides, and terricides.
9. Let us build societies in whose center is the care of life. Let us guarantee the rights of Nature to its existence, to maintain its life cycles, to live free of pollution, to its identity, to regenerate itself, to be represented in our democratic governance systems, and to demand justice and redress. Let us integrate care economies into everyday life, with shared responsibility among people, regardless of their gender identity, both within households and in society.
10. Promote a new world integration at the service of peoples and nature, based on a multilateralism from below that includes, in addition to the representation of States, the representation of peoples and nature with decision-making power. Establish national, regional, and international governance mechanisms so that the commitments to be adopted are effectively fulfilled under the social control of their peoples. In this sense, the proposal of the Amazon Treaty to reestablish the water cycle in this basin is a call to think of a new type of non-anthropocentric integration from below.

We call to build from our territories, struggles, and alternatives this Systemic Agreement to face the climate and ecological crisis, taking advantage of different moments such as the COP 16 on Biological Biodiversity in Colombia, the G20 in Brazil, the People’s Summit in Belem, and others. We are convinced that the fundamental of this call is to awaken an escalation of actions in all corners of the planet to move towards changing the capitalist system, not the climate.

Rurrenabaque and San Buenaventura, Bolivia, June 15 2024