The Amazon protection plan of the Colombian president Gustavo Petro is a continuation of previous efforts, but inviting Venezuela is a mistake because Nicholas Maduro “He has no moral authority” on ecological issues, former President Iván Duque, a guest at COP27, declared on Wednesday.
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Petro and Maduro presented this project during the climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, which includes payment to peasants and indigenous people for preserving the forest, together with the president of Suriname, Chan Santokhi.
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“President Santokhi is a person who has worked hard on these issues, I respect him a lot,” Duque said in an interview with AFP. “The one who has absolutely no moral authority to speak about the protection of the environment is Maduro. Just look at what has happened in the Venezuelan mining arc,” he added.
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A declared enemy of the Venezuelan president throughout his term, which ended in August, Duque has very harsh words with Maduro, who, after the parenthesis of the pandemic, returned to the international diplomatic scene at COP27, partly supported by Petro.
Both leaders are in talks during the summit in Egypt.
Colombian Presidency
“Colombia is part of this agenda, but I think Maduro is trying to wash his face right now and obviously wants to make use of friends. And he is a dictator, he is an ecocide and a genocide,” he adds.
The act in Sharm el Sheikh was organized by the Petro government, which has already met with Maduro in Caracas. “You will know them by their friends,” Duke simply declares when questioned about it.
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Criticism for deforestation in Colombia
Petro initially presented his initiative for the Amazon, lung of the planet shared by nine countries, in the city of Leticia on August 19, shortly after assuming power.
Duque recalls that he launched the Leticia Plan in 2019, which includes payments to peasants and indigenous people and measures against deforestation, a pact that was signed by all the presidents of the basin, except obviously Maduro. And the origins of all these transnational initiatives go back to the 1970s, emphasizes.
“Colombia already has a state policy that is underway,” he explains during a break in his agenda at the conference.
The one who has absolutely no moral authority to speak about the protection of the environment is Maduro.
Duque is an ambassador of the so-called High Ambition Coalition, which already has 112 countries, with the aim that the world protect 30% of its natural spaces by 2030. And at COP27 he also participated in the launch of the first Carbon Markets Initiative for Africa.
Duque was criticized by environmental organizations for the deforestation of the Amazon under his mandate, which continued and consumed 7,018 km2 between 2018 and 2021.
“In total, during our four-year term, what did we achieve? Reduce the rate of deforestation by 30%. The rate fell. But that does not mean that it does not continue to exist,” he admits.
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Environmentalists criticize this use of percentages, based in their opinion on projections, not real figures.
The Petro project proposes to provide aid to “100,000 rural families” in the Amazon to take care of the jungle, a significant increase compared to the figures of the Duque government.
“What one has to look for is that they are families that are effectively carrying out a conservation task. Delivering the subsidy to 100,000 families is easy, but linking 100,000 families to conservation programs requires registration, monitoring, accompaniment…”. warns.
AFP
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