Cali (Colombia), Oct 21 (EFE).- Over 500 key biodiversity areas and 180 million hectares of forests are affected by fossil fuel exploitation and mining in the Amazon, Congo, and Southeast Asian basins, warned a report presented on Monday at COP16.
The three regions, which total 25.4 million hectares of protected areas, are overlapped by oil and gas blocks, denounced the report “Closing Window of Opportunity: Mapping Threats from Oil, Gas, and Mining to Important Areas for Conservation in the Pantropics.”
Earth Insight and other environmental organizations presented the document on the first day of the COP16 Biodiversity Conference, which is being held in Cali until Nov. 1.
“The minimum, the basics, is to ensure that key biodiversity areas in indigenous territories and other areas important for conservation are not fractured by extractive industries,” Juan Pablo Osornio, Earth Insight’s Engagement Director, told a press conference.
Osornio also warned that “in the Amazon basin we are acutely seeing the consequences of reaching the tipping point.”
In this regard, the Vice Chair for Science and Biodiversity, World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Stephen Woodley, said that “the main cause of biodiversity loss is the fracturing of land,” in reference to the call launched at this summit to halt the loss of natural resources.
The report also showed the threat posed by extractive expansion to the livelihoods of indigenous peoples.
For example, “more than 30 million hectares of indigenous territories in the Amazon are under oil and gas concessions. […] 9.2 million hectares are overlapped by mining concessions.”
And in particular, the document points out, they pose a risk to indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.
In this scenario, the environmental organizations said, “Urgent and coordinated global action is needed to close the gap between conservation commitments and the realities of industrial-scale exploitation of natural resources.”
In short, “this report is a red flag for all states,” said Alice Jay from Campaign for Nature.
Osornio concluded “We have a window of opportunity that is closing to protect these areas while extractive industries are expanding. EFE