As world leaders spoke about protecting the environment at the United Nations General Assembly this week, Colombia took an important concrete step by ratifying the Escazú Agreement, a landmark treaty for Latin American and Caribbean nations that advances the right to a healthy environment.
The record-breaking fires ravaging South American ecosystems this year, including the Amazon Rainforest, should be a reminder to other countries in the region that there is no time to spare.
The Escazú Agreement strengthens environmental governance by guaranteeing access to information, public participation in decision-making, and pathways to prevent and redress environmental harm. It also requires governments to protect environmental defenders in a region where they face high levels of violence and promote regional cooperation to protect ecosystems across Latin America and the Caribbean that need to be preserved to curb climate change.
As Colombia becomes the fourth Amazon country to join the treaty alongside Ecuador, Bolivia, and Guyana, attention should turn to Brazil, which is home to 60 percent of the rainforest.
Brazil signed the agreement in 2018, but it was soon forgotten when Jair Bolsonaro won the presidency. Once in office, Bolsonaro effectively gave the green light to illegal logging and mining in the Amazon.
When President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2023, more than 140 Brazilian and international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, urged him to send the agreement to Congress, which he did. Yet, legislators have since moved slowly in considering the treaty. All parties should get behind an agreement that advances transparency and greater protection for Brazil’s environmental heritage and its defenders.
As it prepares to host next year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), Brazil should join multilateral efforts to curb the climate crisis and bring the country closer to delivering on its pledges. Last month, federal prosecutors asserted that ratifying the Escazú Agreement is “extremely urgent” and would “reaffirm, for the country and the international community, the Brazilian government’s commitment to protecting the environment.”
The sense of urgency is also felt among Indigenous peoples and other environmental defenders struggling to protect the forest on which they depend for their livelihoods.
Climate change affects everyone. Brazilians should have the right to access information and participate in decisions that are crucial for the survival of the planet.
