“The figures of deforestation in the Amazon are worrying and require us to act immediately”: Prosecutor

The Attorney General’s Office warned on Wednesday that the figures of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon are alarming, and require urgent measures to guarantee the protection, conservation and recovery of native forests that have been threatened by various illegal activities.

This was alerted by the Attorney General, Margarita Cabello, in the middle of the “National Table to Combat Deforestation in the Amazon Region”, where she assured that despite institutional efforts to curb deforestation in this important strategic ecosystem, there are inadequacies in the articulation of measures by the State institutions and their implementation in the territories.

“The Colombian Amazon is an ecological treasure that is threatened by increasing deforestation. The numbers are worrying and force us to act immediately. We cannot allow our children to be living in the midst of a scenario of illegal activities that daily destroy our natural resources,” said the prosecutor during her intervention in this space to which 30 national and departmental entities were summoned.

It also released information provided by the Andean Amazon Monitoring Project, which estimated that by June 2020, deforestation in the country amounted to 76.2 thousand hectares of native forests and positioned Colombia as the second country with the highest record of primary forest losses in the Amazon, with about 140 thousand hectares deforested, 53 per cent more than the previous year.

Likewise, he noted that according to official data for that year the largest area of deforestation was located in the Amazon region, with 63.7 per cent in the entire country, a figure that currently exceeds 70 per cent, and that according to information from the Ministry of Environment, January was the month with the highest number of hectares affected by fires in recent years ten years.

She also referred to the importance of including the women’s rights approach in the development of actions aimed at reducing deforestation in the country, noting that it was a priority to understand the importance of strengthening their role as caregivers and protectors of the environment.

He also presented the report “Actions to combat deforestation in the Colombian Amazon”, which compiled the measures of the control body to deal with this serious scourge that currently represents one of the country’s greatest environmental problems resulting from the construction of illegal infrastructure, extensive livestock farming, especially in National Natural Parks (NNPs).

“This document must rest in all entities that, within their functions and missions, have a constitutional duty to carry out actions that lead to the reduction of deforestation,” concluded Prosecutor Cabello.

The departments of Caquetá, Guainía, Meta, Vaupés, Putumayo, Guaviare and the Amazon require special attention because more than 70 per cent of the deforestation that occurs throughout the country is concentrated in these territories, affecting thousands of hectares of native forests close to nature reserves and leading to loss of irreversible biodiversity.

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