“To the productive sector, protecting forests means avoiding inflation”

4 de July de 2025 | News

Jul 4, 2025 | News

During the plenary celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Brazil Climate, Forests and Agriculture Coalition, André Guimarães, executive director of IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute), warned of the impact on food prices in the future without investment in conservation by the productive sector. IPAM’s calculations indicate that at least 50 billion dollars are needed to maintain native vegetation, restore and protect forests, as provided for in the Forest Code.

“If we don’t incorporate the forest and native vegetation into the production system, if we don’t implement this new paradigm, we’re going to generate food inflation in the future,” he said.

A member of the delegation of civil society organizations present in China last month, André Guimarães sees the Asian market as an opportunity, especially in the year of the Climate Conference (COP30), which takes place in November in Belém.

“It’s time for the Global South to unite in the search for solutions with socio-environmental and economic gains. As long as we turn the fear of spending into an opportunity for investment and financial return,” he said. “It’s about showing the Chinese that taking care of the Cerrado and the Amazon is good for them. If they understand that, they’ll help fund it. We’re going to need hundreds of millions of dollars to turn the Amazon around, to conserve the Cerrado, to set aside public forests. We’re not going to do it with our own capital. COP30 is a unique opportunity,” said Guimarães, Civil Society Special Envoy for COP30.

Celebration

André Guimarães congratulated the Coalition, a movement made up of around 400 representatives from the private sector, the financial sector, academia and civil society, and highlighted the visionary role of the discussions over the last decade.

“When the Coalition was created, it not only had a very strong commitment, but it was visionary. Those ladies and gentlemen who sat down to create the Coalition really saw something that we are confirming today: that there needs to be dialogue. And that forest, climate and agriculture are not really separate agendas, they are one agenda,” he said.

The event took place on June 3 at Casa Natura Musical, in São Paulo, and among the authorities present were Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change; Dan Ioschpe, COP30 Climate Champion; Roberto Rodrigues, Special Envoy for Agriculture to COP30; and Marcello Brito, Executive Secretary of the Consortium of the Legal Amazon and Special Envoy of Amazonian Subnational Governments to COP30.



This project is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Find out more at un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals.

Veja também

See also