Press Release: COICA and the Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA) agree on an alliance to promote the protection and restoration of at least 80% of the Amazon as a measure to avoid the tipping point

Bogotá, Colombia (June 5, 2025) — The Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) and the Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA) through its Climate Change, Biodiversity and Amazon Initiative agree on a strategic alliance to avoid an imminent tipping point throughout the region by protecting and restoring 80% of ecosystem integrity.  In 2023-2024, the Amazon experienced its worst drought in 122 years and triggered a spiral of fires throughout the region.  The fires in the Amazon devastated an area equivalent to the entire state of California or the surface of Italy.  Drought, heat waves and fires are three phenomena that feed on each other and threaten the food, water, health and energy security of a region on which more than 500 Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and at least 47 million people depend directly, and indirectly, more than 400 million inhabitants in 8 countries and an overseas territory of France.

Since 2021, COICA and the Initiative “Amazonia for Life: Protect 80% by 2025” have based their vision on Resolution 129 proposed by COICA at IUCN: “Avoiding the point of no return in the Amazon by protecting 80% by 2025”.  This goal is set with the scientific data that defines this scenario as occurring once deforestation crosses the 20-25 percent threshold, and global warming crosses the 2.0-2.5°C threshold.   Since then, 1,300 organizations worldwide and more than 60 Indigenous organizations have supported the goal, the government of Colombia adopted the goal as its official position (2023), the 2023 Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues issued two resolutions urging Amazonian governments and the international community to protect 80% by 2025,  the Declaration of Belém established that the tipping point as the most important challenge for the region, among other milestones.  Thanks to the collaboration with FOSPA and other networks, 80% by 2025 went viral in Belém; however, the final text of the declaration did not include the goal, but it did include the point of no return.  The devastation of 2023-2024 shows, however, that the efforts of both initiatives have not been sufficient to achieve national and regional policies to stop the trajectory of destruction in the region.  Faced with higher rates of deforestation and degradation, COICA has proposed this year a new motion to IUCN for an “Emergency action to restore 80% of ecological integrity in the Amazon by 2030, avoiding cascading tipping points (IUCN Motion 068)” with which it hopes to complement Resolution 129 and bring together the largest number of networks to protect and restore 80% of the Amazon by 2030.  For this reason, FOSPA and COICA have decided to carry out a strategic alliance to advocate at COP30 and other international events that can stop the trajectory of destruction in the largest and most biodiverse continuous forest on the planet, its inhabitants, Indigenous Peoples and the planet as a whole.

Germán Niño ratified what was stated in FOSPA’s Belém Charter in 2022 that “Declares the State of Climate Emergency in the Pan-Amazon and its permanent compliance to allow its active restoration and the protection of its biodiversity, in coordination with the Amazonian peoples and move towards a new paradigm of relationship with nature. In addition, it reaffirms the purpose set out in the Letter addressed to the IV Summit of the Presidents of the Amazon, insisting that “We cannot fail. The Amazon and its inhabitants are a fundamental piece to guarantee the planetary future. There is a debt to the native peoples, a responsibility to ourselves, to the planet and to future generations. We cannot fail, the time is now and it is with our participation.”

Fany Kuiru Castro, General Coordinator of COICA and of the Initiative “Amazonia for Life Initiative: protect 80% by 2025”, said that “only the coordination of efforts to protect the Amazon will be the key to keeping it alive.  Otherwise, we are destined for cascading tipping points that will end the biocultural diversity present in this region, the knowledge that has kept this great maloca alive for millennia and even life on the planet.  We must join forces to achieve the necessary impact on the political decisions that will shape life in the Amazon, the lives and livelihoods of its Indigenous Peoples and more than 400 million inhabitants in 9 countries. Together we will build from the bottom-up, from the territories, one voice calls in unison, the urgent need to protect and restore at least 80% of the Amazon as soon as possible.”

About the Pan Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA)

The Pan Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA) is an autonomous and independent movement made up of movements, social organizations, representatives of people and communities present in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Suriname and Guyana (French) to articulate the agendas of Amazonian organizations and networks and make visible the proposals for the defense of the Amazon.  in the face of climate change and intercultural coexistence.  Every two years, FOSPA organizes an event that brings together the different pan-Amazonian networks of the 9 countries to propose common agendas in consensus.

Website: https://www.forosocialpanamazonico.com/

About COICA and the Amazon for Life Initiative: Protect 80% by 2025

COICA was founded in 1984 with the aim of generating policies, proposals and actions at the local, national and international levels, from the Amazonian indigenous peoples, nationalities and organizations.  In 2021, COICA and indigenous leaders from the 9 countries of the Basin, together with allied organizations, called on the international community in the Urgent Motion to IUCN in 2021 to avoid the point of no return in the Amazon by protecting 80% by 2025.  Resolution 129 was approved with the vote of 541 global civil society organizations and 62 ministries.  Today, more than 1,300 organizations support the goal and the Initiative.  A new motion has been presented and approved in the first instance that will allow actions until 2030 to avoid cascading points of no return through the protection and restoration of Amazonian ecosystems.  The “Amazon for Life Initiative” calls for the protection of 80% of the Amazon by 2025 to avoid the point of no return in the largest carbon sink on the planet.

Website: www.amazonia80x2025.earth

Press Contacts/Interview Opportunities

• Alicia Guzmán (Technical Coordinator of the 80×2025 Initiative)- aliciaguzman5@hotmail.com / +593 98 641 5612
• Bryan Ludeña – COICA Communication: blud1993@gmail.com / +593 98 979 5277
• Osver Polo Carrasco, FOSPA Communication: polo@canla.org / +51 963 981 429