BELEM – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday put forward his vision for how the Amazon rainforest should be protected, a future that didn't depend on donations from wealthy nations and large philanthropies but instead included a major fund that paid countries to keep forests standing.

“I don't want to say the word donation any longer,” Lula told reporters ahead of the United Nations’ climate summit , known as COP30, which begins this week in Belem , a Brazilian city in the edge of the Amazon.

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“Someone gives us $50 million. It is nice, but that’s nothing," he said. "We need billions to deal with our problems, problems of people who are (living) there.”

In Belem, Lula is expected to launch an initiative named Tropical Forests Forever Fund, ai

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