By João Pedro Galvão Ramalho, Coordinator of Articulation and Strategy at the Pororoka Collective, and Adilson Vieira, Coordinator of Articulation and Partnerships at the GTA Network.

Point of No Return Drawing Ever Closer

The increase in fires in 2024, especially in Bolivia and Brazil, and the advance of deforestation linked to the logic of agro-industrial capital confirm the perception of forest peoples that the risk of being at an absolute “point of no return” of forest degradation is real. Even so, the Bogotá Declaration failed to establish firm and measurable targets to halt deforestation, backtracking in relation to the Belém Letter, which had envisioned common goals through 2030 and the creation of an Amazonian Alliance against deforestation. The Amazon crisis is not only the result of institutional failures but also of the continuation of the extractivist model and global capitalism that turns the forest into a commodity.

Amazon as a Fossil Frontier

Another serious omission concerns oil and gas exploration. Between 2022 and 2024, nearly 20% of the world’s new oil discoveries occurred in the Amazon, overlapping with Indigenous territories, traditional communities, and conservation areas. Colombia attempted to include in the text a commitment to move beyond the fossil economy, but Brazil maintained its stance on a “just, gradual, and orderly transition,” while Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela openly opposed the proposal. This logic reflects the shared view among governments and corporations of the financialization of nature, which prioritizes profit over life and biodiversity. The many voices denouncing the contradiction of transforming the planet’s most biodiverse region into a new extractivist frontier were left out of the final declaration.

Brazil and Colombia: Multilateral Effort Amid Regional Tensions

One positive outcome was the reaffirmation by Brazil and Colombia of their attempt to strengthen ACTO as a space for multilateral coordination. The creation of the Amazon Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples (MAPI) and the reference to the Social ACTO made by President Lula, a proposal from civil society, were important achievements. The problem is that ACTO itself requires unanimity to approve resolutions, which weakens it in a context of rising regional tension, the absence of heads of state in Bogotá, and the advance of the far right and fascism in several Amazonian countries. Democratic erosion is part of the same political project that sustains extractivism and reduces the ability to build consensus at the scale required by the climate crisis.

Amazon Free from Predatory Extractivism: The Necessary Synthesis

As in 2023, it was up to civil society to present the solutions governments failed to assume: building territories free from fossil fuels, predatory mining, and monoculture latifundia. These territories—rooted in ways of life, ancestral knowledge, and concrete experiences of resistance—can sustain a true Amazonian multilateralism capable of confronting the combined challenges of the climate crisis, social inequality, and authoritarian advance. The transition must be radical, systemic, and guided by sustainable, agro-extractivist, and community-based practices—not merely gradual or symbolic.

Brazil’s commitment to the Social ACTO opens a space for Amazonian peoples and communities to have a permanent seat in decision-making. But the challenge is clear: without recognizing and strengthening these political subjects, any attempt to save the Amazon and the planet will remain insufficient. What happens in the Amazon is the synthesis of the global crisis of capitalism—social, environmental, and democratic—and it demands actions that match this scale.