Indigenous people gain formal role in Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization

The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) recently announced the creation of a formal role for Indigenous peoples, giving them a voice for the first time in one of the Amazon Basin’s most important intergovernmental bodies. The announcement was made during ACTO’s fifth summit of presidents of Amazonian countries in Bogotá, Colombia, marking a historic shift that grants Indigenous peoples more influence over important issues including deforestation, biodiversity and protected-area management. “Our ways of life already offer concrete solutions to confront climate change and biodiversity loss with justice and effectiveness,” a coalition of Indigenous peoples from the nine countries of the Amazon Basin said in an opening statement at the summit last week. “That’s why we emphasize that