IRI-Colombia participated in the forum “Beyond Political Divisions: Building Lasting Commitments for the Amazon,” organized by the global Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI), where it addressed the need to make the protection of the Amazon a commitment of both the state and society.
“In this transformation, national legislatures have a strategic responsibility,” said Blanca Lucía Echeverry, director of IRI-Colombia.
The meeting brought together political leaders to discuss the strategies needed to ensure that the protection of the Amazon becomes a long-term institutional commitment capable of transcending partisan divisions and electoral cycles.
Senator Sandra Chindoy and Representative Miguel Ángel Rubio joined IRI-Colombia in this dialogue. The lawmakers discussed the creation of the Ad Hoc Commission for the Protection of the Amazon, the result of an advocacy process led by IRI-Colombia for more than eight months and supported by more than 20 Colombian lawmakers.
“Our country has all the tools it needs: from international agreements that are binding on the country to legal instruments such as the Constitution, Constitutional Court Ruling No. 4360 of 2018, and the decree issued by Gustavo Petro protecting the Amazon biome,” noted Representative Rubio, who is one of the Commission’s coordinators.
Senator Chindoy, for her part, stressed that discussions regarding the Amazon cannot be short-term or dependent on any particular government or the political forces that come to Congress. “They must be structural in nature,” said the congresswoman, who also announced that a proposal will be made to create a Legal Commission for the Protection of the Amazon.
Also participating in the meeting were Ginny Katherine Alba, from the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC); Jorge Pérez, an indigenous leader from the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP); Pastor Enrique Alva Callupe, president of the National Evangelical Council of Peru (CONEP); Laura Vargas, director of IRI-Peru; and Ana Osuna Orozco, program manager at the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative.
Miguel Ángel Rubio, member of the House of Representatives and coordinator of the Ad Hoc Commission for the Protection of the Amazon.
