The meeting A dialogue for a possible Amazon, held on September 22nd at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, brought together representatives from civil society, the private sector, governments, and academia. The event is the first step in uniting efforts to develop an effective agenda for the sustainable development of the Amazon.
The event was attended by Marcello Brito, president of the Brazilian Agribusiness Association (ABAG); Denise Hills, director of sustainability at Natura&Co; Carlos Nobre, researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEA-USP); Fernando Meirelles, filmmaker and producer of the video "Amazônia Possível"; and Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team. The event was moderated by André Guimarães, executive director of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and the Brazil, Climate, Forests and Agriculture Coalition. The presentation on the vision for "Amazônia Possível" was given by Guilherme Leal, co-founder of Natura and co-founder of the Arapyaú Institute.
"The climate crisis is extremely serious, and its treatment cannot be postponed. Young leaders like Greta show us that we cannot postpone our actions. What brings us here is the gravity of the present, not only for the Amazon, but for the globe as a whole. We know how important the Amazon is for Brazil, for South America, and for the globe more broadly. We know the impact that degradation can have on agribusiness, on job and income generation, and on the region's climate conditions." (Guilherme Leal, Co-founder of Natura & Co and Founder of the Arapyaú Institute)
Natura's sustainability director, Denise Hills, stated that we are "burning our Mona Lisa," describing the Amazon as Brazil's treasure. For Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team, a coalition of companies committed to developing more sustainable businesses, the business-as-usual model, with its duality between production and protection, needs to be redefined. "Doing business as usual has led us to melting glaciers, burning forests, and an unbelievable level of inequality," she said. "And we still don't have any technology better than trees to sequester carbon."
The event took place during Climate Week in New York and one day before the UN Climate Summit. It was supported by the Brazil Climate, Forests, and Agriculture Coalition; the Brazil Global Compact Network and Sistema B, as well as executive support from the Arapyaú Institute. "The idea is to foster dialogue between representatives of Brazilian and international civil society, academia, the private sector, governments, and communities in the Amazon region to define concrete actions to reconcile economic development and environmental preservation, to be presented at COP-25 by the Brazilian business sector," says Renata Piazzon, manager of the Arapyaú Institute's Climate Change program.
You can check out the full video of the event here.
Filmmaker Fernando Meirelles released a short video summarizing the idea of the Possible Amazon. Check it out:
CEBDS Positioning in Relation to the Amazon
CEBDS released a note on the Amazon, which you can check out here, in which it advocates the improvement of control and monitoring systems to eliminate illegal deforestation in the short term in the Amazon and in all biomes, and reduce legal deforestation.
It's important to emphasize once again that there's no controversy between producing and preserving. Leading companies in all production sectors, especially in Brazilian agribusiness, already recognize the path to sustainable development and the positive business opportunities generated by best practices in the social and environmental sphere.
