Eight Amazon rainforest countries open summit in Belem, Brazil

|For the first time in 14 years, presidents of the South American nations home to the Amazon rainforest are converging to chart a common course for protection of the bioregion and address organized crime.
The summit in the Brazilian city of Belem is a meeting of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, a toothless, 45-year-old alliance that has met only three times before.
The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India, and two-thirds of it lies in Brazil.
Seven other countries and one territory share the remaining third – Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador and French Guiana.
Presidents from all but Ecuador, Suriname and Venezuela are attending. Massive destruction of the Amazon forest is a climate disaster and all the countries at the summit have ratified the Paris climate accord which requires signatories to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But that’s about as far as their shared policy goes. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said he hopes the Belem summit will awaken the long-dormant organization.