Andre Cabette Fabio

A dozen countries have pledged to formally recognise land rights across 80 million hectares where Indigenous, Afro-descendant and other communities live in tropical forests around the world by 2030 in a bid to stem global deforestation.

The Intergovernmental Land Tenure Pledge, billed as the first global commitment recognising land tenure to secure additional land under Indigenous communities' control, was announced on Friday ahead of the U.N. COP30 climate summit that kicked off Monday.

Countries around the world are set to contribute $5.6 billion in long-term loans to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), a multilateral fund proposed by Brazil to support global forest conservation.

The announcement was made by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at a leaders' summit on Thursday, ahead of the U.N. COP30 climate summit next week when world leaders will meet in Brazil's Amazonian city of Belem.

As Brazil hosts COP30, the climate commitments of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will come under scrutiny, as he has sought to position the country as an environmental champion yet is advancing development projects in the Amazon rainforest.

World leaders, with the glaring exception of U.S. President Donald Trump, are set to gather in Brazil's Amazon rainforest city of Belém for the U.N. COP30 climate summit from November 10-21.

Under Brazil's Amazon rainforest canopy, hundreds of transparent plastic panels hang between tree trunks to starve a hectare of land of half the water it normally receives.

Scientists are creating this artificial drought in Querencia municipality close to the southeastern edge of the world's largest rainforest to better understand the limits of the Amazon's resistance to extreme dry conditions that are predicted by climate change models.

At the mouth of the Amazon River, Brazil's most promising oil frontier is at the centre of a dispute between environmentalists and South America's largest company.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is pressuring the government's environment agency Ibama to drop its objections to allowing state-controlled oil energy Petrobras to drill for oil in the Equatorial Margin region, off the northeast coast.

The deep timbre of bamboo flutes emerges from within a darkened Indigenous communal house in the Amazon rainforest, followed by dancers in body paint and musicians rhythmically stomping their feet under the scorching afternoon sun.

Variations of this scene have played out for generations in the Kalapalo people's Tanguro village in Brazil's Xingu Indigenous Park.

Born to a family of rubber tappers from Brazil's Amazon rainforest, Marina Silva had her first paid job as a maid, learned to read at 16 and became an environmental activist by 17 alongside the famous campaigner Chico Mendes.

Now Brazil's environment minister, next month she will host world leaders in the Amazonian city of Belem for the U.N. COP30 summit to discuss how to save the rainforest, and the planet, from climate change and the destruction of nature.

At this year's COP30 climate summit in Brazil, much of the debate is expected to centre on how to protect tropical rainforests, especially the Amazon - home to the meeting's host city of Belém.

The largest tropical rainforest on Earth faces a pivotal moment. Last year, a drought drove river levels to record lows and fires that contributed to the record loss of tropical forests worldwide, according to research organisation World Resources Institute.

Ahead of the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém, Brazil is pushing ahead with road, railway, mining and oil drilling projects that risk accelerating the destruction of the vast rainforest, environmentalists warn.

In August, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed into law a bill that creates a fast-track special licensing process for projects deemed "strategic," a change hailed by agribusinesses and mining lobbies.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed into law a bill easing environmental licensing rules for projects that could accelerate deforestation in the world's largest tropical rainforest.

Dubbed the "devastation bill" by critics, the law dismantles environmental protections that have forestalled developing ecologically sensitive areas and required companies to avoid or compensate for projects' impact on nature.