Bogota:

Colombia’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday annulled a controversial carbon credit deal in the Amazon rainforest, which six local tribes said had been signed without their consent.

Indigenous communities living in the remote area of Pira Parana had accused US-based Ruby Canyon Environmental and Colombian company Masbosques, which acted as an intermediary, of illegally foisting the deal on them.

Carbon credits are bought by corporations — or countries under certain conditions — from forest preservation or other projects to offset or “compensate” their greenhouse gas emissions.

This money is supposed to go to local communities that protect their home regions from deforestation.

In Pira Parana, the credits — also known as green bonds — were sold for about $3.8 million to a Colombian data processing firm called Latin Checkout.

According to EcoRegistry, which keeps tabs on carbon credit trading, Latin Checkout then sold the credits to US airline Delta which faces a lawsuit at home for alleged “greenwashing” by claiming to be carbon-neutral while purchasing questionable carbon offsets.

The deal, signed in March 2021, was for the Indigenous communities to preserve an area of 7,100 square kilometers (2,741 miles) — close to the size of Puerto Rico.

But the tribes said the deal was signed with false representatives of their communities.

They went to court claiming violations of their rights to territorial autonomy and self-government.

On Monday, the court ordered the tribes’ legitimate representatives to meet and decide within six months whether to authorize a new agreement.

If they do not, authorities must “ensure” the carbon credit project “is no longer carried out in the territory,” the judges ruled.

The concept behind carbon credits has taken a major hit recently as scientific research has repeatedly shown claims of reduced emissions being hugely overestimated — or even nonexistent.

In late 2023, AFP walked, motor-boated and overflew part of the Pira Parana territory, an area so remote it is accessible only by million-dollar private flights or a boat trip of at least six days from the nearest city of Mitu.

There, local leaders said they wished they had never heard of the deal.

While it brought an economic “bonanza,” it also led to conflict in communities unaccustomed to handling large sums of money and a loss of Indigenous autonomy, they said.

The project “contaminates spiritually, physically, it destroys everything… in this territory, for money,” Indigenous leader Fabio Valencia said at the time.

Some experts have said there was no real deforestation threat in the area and therefore no emissions “savings” to be made.

The Constitutional Court case was the first of its kind in Colombia.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Negro river, a tributary of the Amazon river, is facing the worst dry season in decades in the Amazon rainforest.
| Photo Credit: AFP

As the Amazon drought rages on, public authorities in Brazil are scrambling to deliver food and water to thousands of isolated communities throughout a vast and roadless territory, where boats are the only means of transportation.

Across Amazonas state, which has a territory the size of three Californias, 59 out of its 62 municipalities are under state of emergency, impacting 633,000 people. In the capital Manaus, Negro River — a major tributary of the Amazon — has reached its lowest level since official measurements began 121 years ago.

One of the most impacted cities is Careiro da Varzea, near Manaus by the Amazon River. On Tuesday, the municipality distributed emergency kits using an improvised barge originally designed to transport cattle.

The Associated Press accompanied the delivery to two communities. It docked miles away from them, requiring residents, most of them small farmers and fishermen, to walk long distances through former riverbeds turned into endless sand banks and mud.

Each family received a basic food package and 20 liters of water, enough for just a few days but a heavy burden to carry under the scorching heat.

“I will have to carry the food package on my back for half an hour,” Moisés Batista de Souza, a small farmer from Sao Lazaro community, told the AP. He said the biggest problem is getting drinkable water. To reach the closest source demands a long walk from his house.

“Everybody in Careiro da Varzea has been affected by the drought,” said Jean Costa de Souza, chief of Civil Defense of Careiro da Varzea, a municipality of 19,600 people, most living in rural areas. “Unfortunately, people don’t have water. Some lost their crops, while others couldn’t transport their output.” Costa de Souza said the municipality will finish next week the first round of deliveries to all rural communities. Other two rounds are under planning, pending on receiving aid from state and federal governments.

Dry spells are part of the Amazon’s cyclical weather pattern, with lighter rainfall from May to October for most of the rainforest. The season is being further stretched this year by two climate phenomena: the warming of northern tropical Atlantic Ocean waters and El Niño — the warming of surface waters in the Equatorial Pacific region — which will peak between December and January.

A little boy walks across a dry, cracked area of the Negro River near his houseboat during a drought in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, on October 16, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Negro River, the Amazon’s second largest tributary, on Monday reached its lowest level since official measurements began near Manaus 121 years ago. The record confirms that this part of the world’s largest rainforest is suffering its worst drought, just a little over two years after its most significant flooding.

In the morning, the water level in the city’s port went as low as 13.5 metres (44.3 feet), down from 30.02 metres (98.5 feet) registered in June 2021 — its highest level on record. The Negro River drains about 10% of the Amazon basin and is the world’s sixth largest by water volume.

Madeira River, another main tributary of the Amazon, has also recorded historically low levels, causing the halt of the Santo Antonio hydroelectric dam, Brazil’s fourth largest.

Throughout Brazil’s Amazon, low river levels have left hundreds of riverine communities isolated and struggling to get access to drinkable water. The drought also has disrupted commercial navigation that supplies Manaus, a city of 2 million with a large industrial park.

Manaus is the largest city and capital of Amazonas, the state hit hardest by the drought. In late September, 55 of 62 municipalities there entered states of emergency due to the severe drought.

“There is no more water to go through. Navigation is over,” boatman Cledson Lopes Brasil told The Associated Press.

Brasil operates in Marina do Davi port, a getaway to dozens of riverine communities, some of them with sandy beaches that attract tourists. The once bustling area is now surrounded by parched soil, with many boathouses high and dry.

For one month now, Brasil has switched to a lower-powered boat, better suited for shallow waters. Still, he can’t reach most communities along Taruma-Açu, a tributary of the Negro River. Some riverine dwellers must walk up to three hours to reach their houses — and tourism has stopped altogether.

Manaus and other nearby cities are also suffering from high temperatures and heavy smoke from nearby man-caused fires for deforestation and pasture clearance. The drought is also the likely cause of dozens of river dolphin deaths in Tefe Lake, near the Amazon River.

Also read | More than 100 dolphins found dead in Brazilian Amazon as water temperatures soar

This is a startling contrast to July 2021, when Negro River waters took over part of the Manaus downtown area. The historic flood, which also ruined crops of hundreds of riverine communities, lasted for about three months.

Philip Fearnside, an American researcher at the Brazilian National Institute of Amazonian Research, a public agency, expects the situation to deteriorate, both during the ongoing event and in the future with increasing frequency and severity of similar events with climate change.

He said surface water in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean is now warmer than during the “Godzilla” El Niño of 2015-2016 and is expanding. In the Amazon, these Pacific warmings primarily lead to droughts in the northern part of the region.

Moreover, a warm water patch in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean is causing drought in the southern part of the Amazon, similar to what happened in 2005 and 2010, according to researchers.

“The forecast is for the start of the rains to be delayed compared to normal, and for a drier-than-normal rainy season,” Mr. Fearnside said. “This could result not only in extreme low water this year, but also low levels in 2024. Until the rainy season begins in the basin, the situation that is already underway should worsen.”

Brasilia, Brazil:

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 66 percent in August versus the same month last year, the government said Tuesday, while also announcing the demarcation of two new Indigenous reserves. “In August, we had a reduction of 66.11 percent in deforestation” in Brazil’s share of the world’s biggest rainforest, Environment Minister Marina Silva told a ceremony marking Amazon Day.

That followed a similar year-on-year drop of 66 percent in July — both crucial months in the Amazon, where deforestation typically surges this time of year with the onset of drier weather.

According to satellite monitoring by Brazil’s space research institute, INPE, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon wiped out 1,661 square kilometers in August 2022, the last year of far-right Jair Bolsonaro’s term.

Bolsonaro (2019-2022), an ally of the powerful agribusiness industry blamed for driving the destruction, presided over a sharp increase in deforestation in the Amazon.

“These results show the determination of the Lula administration to break the cycle of abandonment and regression seen under the previous government,” Silva said.

“If we don’t protect the forest and its people, we’ll condemn the world to a brutal increase of CO2 emissions and, as a result, accelerating climate change.”

New Indigenous reserves

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, returned to office in January vowing to protect the threatened Amazon, whose carbon-absorbing trees are a vital buffer against global warming.

Key to that pledge, researchers say, are Indigenous reserves, considered bulwarks against deforestation.

“If there is no future for the Amazon and its people, there will be no future for the planet either,” Lula said in his announcement of the two new reserves.

His government in April already issued decrees recognizing six new Indigenous territories, authorizing Indigenous peoples to occupy the land and have exclusive use of its resources.

Another six could be demarcated by the end of the year, the government said Tuesday.

The country has some 800 reserves, but around a third of them have not been officially demarcated, according to Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency.

No new reserves had been demarcated under Bolsonaro.

The demarcations — of the 187,000-hectare (462,000-acre) Rio Gregorio reserve and the 18,000-hectare (44,000-acre) Acapuri de Cima reserve — come as the country awaits a key Supreme Court decision that could derail or enshrine Indigenous gains.

The law currently only recognizes ancestral territories that were occupied by Indigenous communities at the time Brazil’s constitution was promulgated in 1988.

But Indigenous leaders say certain territories were no longer occupied at that point because communities had been expelled from them, particularly during the military dictatorship from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The case will either validate or invalidate the 1988 cut-off. So far, six of 11 judges have voted — four against the cut-off, two in favor. Voting is set to resume September 20.

Indigenous reserves occupy 13.75 percent of Brazil’s territory, with most — like the two approved Tuesday — in the Amazon.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)