2023-09-18 20:00:14
In the torpor of summer, the event went unnoticed. Emmanuel Macron, based at Fort Brégançon, canceled his trip, planned for early August, to the Amazon Summit organized by Brazilian President Lula. The reason given was that France was not yet part of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA), which includes eight countries and whose objective is the fight against deforestation.
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Not yet because, back at the Elysée, the French president announced that he was going to request this membership. Thanks to Guyana, France is in fact the only state in the European Union (EU) that can claim to join this group.
Was it a delaying tactic? Let’s imagine for a moment that he had gone there: would he have kept his promises of support made to indigenous peoples, whose rights are attacked throughout the Amazon? Statements full of hope which earned the Head of State portraits on the front pages of newspapers, alongside the famous Brazilian chef Raoni.
The essential role of indigenous peoples in the protection of rich tropical forest ecosystems no longer needs to be proven. Yet no treaties signed in the decade – including the Paris climate agreement – does not include concrete measures to put an end to violations of the rights of these local communities. And there was no mention of it either in the final communique of the Amazon Summit nor in the comment on the summit made by Emmanuel Macron on [ex-Twitter]any more than they had been mentioned in The roadmap published in July and whose implementation must, according to the French president, ultimately transform an economic system which has ravaged the planet.
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However, the support that the president could provide to indigenous peoples is important and expected. The question of the survival of the Amazon has indeed moved to Brussels, where EU political leaders are currently negotiating the final version of the directive on “the duty of vigilance of companies in matters of sustainability”.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Indigenous peoples, major players in the protection of species and ecosystems
However, this project, which is supposed to force companies to put in place procedures to deal with environmental damage and combat the human rights violations caused by their activities, is in trouble. If the text proposed by the Commission was already imperfect, it was further considerably weakened after the revisions carried out by the Council of the EU. Member States wish to delete the notion of land rights and the reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoplesadopted on September 13, 2007.
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