Excellencies, colleagues and friends.
I am not here to tell you how important the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin and the forests of Borneo and the Lower Mekong are to those who live in and around them. These are your forests. You know them better than anyone.
But, as many others have said, the rest of the world also treasures these transboundary wonders, which hold most of the world’s tropical forests. Which are teeming with biodiversity. And which give freely of their ecosystem services.
So, on behalf of the UN, my thanks to President Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo for calling the Summit of the Three Basins in Brazzaville and for the generous hospitality which we have received here. And my thanks to everyone who has committed to protecting these ecosystems, which help the rest of us to live and breathe. We owe you a debt of gratitude.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change talks about the transboundary, compounding and cascading negative impacts of climate change. Well, you are talking about an opposing force for good: the transboundary, compounding and cascading benefits of forests. By looking beyond borders and boundaries, you are broadening minds and horizons.
The UN Secretary General has tasked the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with a supportive technical role to this process. It is in this capacity that UNEP comes to this Summit. In support, not in substitute. To advise, not impose. And to back the precious South-South collaboration that you are co-creating.
This collaboration is essential, because basin countries have so much to learn from each other and to teach the world. In science and knowledge on the complexities and delicacies of these ecosystems. On how to address the illegal trade in wildlife and timber. On how to protect the rights of forest custodians in a way that drives sustainable jobs, access to basic services and opportunities. On how to leverage the value of forests beyond the raw value of timber or carbon sequestration.
I ask you to remember that a single tree, no matter how mighty, does not a forest make if it grows alone or out of sync with the nature around it. A forest is all the trees. It is the roots that intertwine and strengthen each other. It is the other species that depend on each other. Your South-South collaboration must be such a forest, in which each partner grows organically and together until your canopy spreads its protection over all beneath it.
Excellencies,
Carlos Nobre’s research in the Amazon talks about rivers in the sky. About how clouds carry water, the lifeblood of this planet, from the forest back into the mountains to fall as rain. I know that you are looking at how such processes are at play in the Congo Basin.
The South-South cooperation you are building is also creating rivers in the sky: rivers that carry hope, not water – across basins, across nations and across continents. Hope that great nations can work together to conserve, protect and restore living, breathing wonders that serve the entire world. Hope that humanity can unite to end the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. Hope that we can build a better life for all, in harmony with nature.
My thanks for undertaking this great endeavour. And be sure that the UN system and UNEP will be there to support you.
