Brussels, 10 May 2006

The European Commission and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization are making joint efforts aimed at supporting the set up of Pan-Amazonian environmental information systems. With one third of the planet’s biodiversity, one fifth of the world’s freshwater resources and the largest river and rainforest on Earth, the Amazon is believed to play a key role in the global climate.

ACTO is a multilateral organization founded by the eight South American states sharing the Amazon Basin and Rainforest. Its mandate is to strive for a sustainable development of this key eco-region. Through this cooperation, the European Commission is further demonstrating its dedication to the cause of the preservation of the Amazon, as a region of vital importance for all mankind, while respecting the sovereignty of the eight South-American countries which share its territory

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (DG JRC) and ACTO are considering signing a Memorandum of Understanding in order to establish the framework for their future collaboration. The agreement will foresee European Commission support for Amazon-related activities across a range of European policy fields, such as scientific co-operation, development co-operation, environment and agriculture. This agreement, among other objectives, would complement national efforts of the Amazon countries regarding the production of new and more reliable data for the Amazon Region, e.g. in the context of a new global effort carried out by DG JRC to estimate deforestation rates of tropical and boreal forests around the planet.

A first taster of this collaboration was an expert workshop organized by DG JRC’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability in 2005. This workshop focused on supporting ACTO’s efforts to produce inputs, based on scientific criteria, which may be used by its Member States in the attempt of achieving a more precise geographic characterization of the Amazon Region as a basic reference for the set-up of Pan-Amazonian environmental information systems.

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The consensus position achieved at the international expert panel facilitated by DG JRC (see ) will serve, among others, as input for a discussion of high-level experts from all ACTO Member States meeting in Rio de Janeiro on 22-23 May. These efforts are of highest relevance for a large number of issues, starting with a simple question like indicating the population of the region, and ending up in complex problems such as estimating the carbon balance of the Amazon as a potential factor in global climate change studies.

While not replacing any existing national definitions and thus not having any legal impact, the new criterion would assist ACTO in the challenge of developing harmonized datasets across the entire Amazon region which will be of benefit not only for the eight countries sharing this continental territory, but also the entire international community.

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With the aim of combining their efforts for the sustainable development of the Amazon Region, the eight South American countries sharing this extraordinary rainforest – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – founded the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), with its Permanent Secretariat based in Brasilia in December 2002. The cooperation in the scientific-technical field is part of the European Commission’s commitment to supporting this new multilateral organization with its unique Pan-Amazonian mandate.

Item source: Date: 10/05/2006