COICA and the Science Panel for the Amazon join forces

Written By Gabriela Arnal

COICA and the Science Panel for the Amazon join forces to promote the protection and restoration of at least 80% of Amazonia as a measure to avoid the tipping point

Quito, Ecuador (May 5, 2025) — Within the framework of the Science Panel for the Amazon workshop held in Quito, Ecuador, from April 8 to 10, 2025, during the III Conference for the Amazon We Want, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) and the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) addressed the current situation in the Amazon region and the role of Indigenous Peoples in avoiding an imminent region-wide tipping point through the protection and restoration of at least 80% of the Amazon region. In 2023-2024, the Amazon experienced its worst drought since record-keeping began in  1902, which triggered a spiral of fires throughout the region. The fires in the Amazon, almost entirely of human origin, have devastated an area equivalent to the size of California or Italy. Drought, heat waves, and fires are three phenomena that feed on each other, threatening the food, water, health, and energy security of a region on which more than 500 Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and at least 47 million inhabitants directly depend, and indirectly affecting more than 400 million people in 8 countries and an overseas territory of France.

Carlos Nobre, co-chair of the SPA, has conducted research on the tipping point or forest dieback in the Amazon, establishing that it occurs once deforestation crosses the threshold of 20-25 percent, and global warming crosses the threshold of 2.0-2.5°C. Guided by these scientific bases, COICA and the initiative “Amazonia for Life: Protect 80% by 2025”, proposed motion 129 to the IUCN in 2021, today Resolution 129 to "Avoid the tipping point in Amazonia by protecting 80% by 2025." Since then, 1,300 organizations worldwide and more than 60 Indigenous organizations have endorsed the target, the government of Colombia adopted the target as its official position (2023), the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues approved two resolutions urging Amazonian governments and the international community to protect 80% by 2025 (2023), and the Declaration of Belém established that the tipping point is the most important challenge for the region (2023), among other milestones. Likewise, in May 2024, the Andean Parliament, in response to the Amazon Report developed jointly with the SPA, declared a national and international State of Emergency for the Amazon Basin, urging Member States to protect it and avoid the tipping point. The efforts of both initiatives, however, have not been sufficient to achieve national and regional policies to stem the trajectory of destruction in the region. The SPA and COICA have therefore decided to join forces to advocate at COP30 and other international events that are key to the fate of the largest and most biodiverse continuous forest on the planet, its inhabitants, Indigenous Peoples, and the planet as a whole.

Carlos Nobre stressed that “The current situation requires achieving immediately and urgently the targets of zero deforestation, zero degradation, and zero fires throughout the Amazon, as well as implementing nature-based 

solutions.” Carlos Nobre also stated, “The SPA has prioritized three axes: large-scale forest restoration, the so-called Arcs of Restoration, in the two large heavily deforested areas throughout the southern Amazon and along the Andes in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru; the implementation of a socio-bioeconomy environment of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers whose high biodiversity potentiates a just and sustainable economy; and, finally, the appreciation and integration of the millenary knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to restore and maintain the enormous biocultural diversity in the region. These solutions will keep more than 80% of the Amazon fully protected and will allow the restoration of deforested and degraded areas, which is essential to avoid the tipping point."

Fany Kuiru Castro, General Coordinator of COICA and Coordinator of the Initiative “Amazonia for Life: protect 80% by 2025”, stated that "The dialogue between ancestral and academic knowledge systems must be the basis for addressing the Amazon in its entirety. Otherwise, we are destined to cascading tipping points that threaten the biocultural diversity, 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 8 countries and a French overseas territory. We will use the power of the SPA data and recommendations to inform indigenous organizations, national governments, and the international community of the urgent need to protect and restore at least 80% of the Amazon as soon as possible."

About the Science Panel for the Amazon

The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), established on September 23, 2019 by the United Nations in New York, is the world's first high-level regional scientific initiative dedicated to the Amazon. Composed of more than 300 scientists, including 72% from Amazonian countries, 14 Indigenous, and 2 Afro-descendants, the SPA connects indigenous and local knowledge with Western science to develop nature-based and evidence-based solutions for sustainable development. Its mission is to synthesize and communicate scientific knowledge about the Amazon, integrated with indigenous and local knowledge, to accelerate solutions for sustainable and equitable development.

Website: https://www.sp-amazon.org/


About COICA and the Initiative “Amazonia for Life: 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 8 Amazonian countries and 1 French overseas territory, together with allied organizations, called on the international community in the Urgent Motion to IUCN to avoid the tipping point 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 endorse 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 Initiative "Amazonia for Life" urges the protection and restoration of 80% of the Amazon by 2030 to avoid the tipping point in the forest with the greatest biodiversity and fresh water on the planet, as a measure to guarantee the water, climate, and food security of the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples, the region, and humanity as a whole.

Website: www.amazonia80x2025.earth


Press Contacts/Interview Opportunities

Gabriela Arnal
Previous

In Memory of Sebastião Salgado
Next

Amazon Dialogues in the Heart of the Andes