First Amazon Forum
GUAYARAMERIN DECLARATION
The holding of
the first Amazon forum in the city of Guayaramerin is a far-reaching
event, triggering off a new cycle of history regarding the relationship
between the Amazon macro-region and the State, while launching an
irreversible process.
We who participated in this First Amazon Forum recognized that a
long history of exclusion has started to die and that a new history
of inclusion and participation is being born.
We value the historic
will and patriotic decision of President Evo Morales in promoting
the deliberations and wide participation of citizens, authorities,
indigenous peoples, intellectuals, peasant communities, in a search
for a new productive, harmonious, inclusive, equitable and socially
just development pattern.
Consideration
of the National Government’s will to prevent the past from
continuing to be the present and that of the future of the macro-region
depends on the commitment ,without exception, of all citizens.
The Amazon is
Bolivian and we, the Bolivian people, and in particular the Amazon
people must forge the conditions that our fathers and grandfathers
dreamt of and died for.
From this forum is born an irreversible process that will help to
heal the wounds of history, both those that bereaved our indigenous
peoples and peasant communities, and those that degraded and ransacked
our nature and our biodiversity.
From today on another history has started: the history of Amazon
dignity.”
We thank the people of Guayaramerin for their hospitality and their
noble welcome.
Guayaramerin will form an inseparable part of this new history,
because it is on this soil that the first pages of recovery and
justice for the Amazon peoples have started to be written
GUAYARAMERIN,
19 JUNE 2007
Synthesis and Conclusions of the First Forum
The First Amazon Forum on “Macro-Regional Identity and Development”
took place in the Municipality of Guayaramerin, launching a dynamic
plural debate on the Amazon situation, to be continued in fora to
be held in the cities of San Buenaventura and Cobija, with the aim
of involving the spectrum of actors from the macro-region in the
construction of a development strategy highlighting the country’s
Amazon quality.
The First Amazon
Forum has gathered different proposals that have become guidelines
to establish the foundations for a Development Policy for the Amazon
Macro-Region. This is based on the participation of social, political
and economic actors, indigenous peoples, peasant communities, and
intellectuals, Prefectures, Municipal Governments and the National
Government.
The following
objectives and expected results were reached:
· Inputs have been generated and strategic elements have
been identified to build up a State Policy and vision of the Amazon
macro-region’s development involving all the actors.
· Common characteristics have been distinguished that make
up the Amazon identity. At the same time it was seen that this identity
is undergoing important changes reflecting new economic, social,
political and cultural conditions. Therefore, the Amazon is an on-going
process.
· Inputs were made by the Amazon’s social and economic
actors to build up a vision of macro-regional development.
· The outline of a National Development Plan and the visions
of the Prefectures and Municipal Governments regarding the Amazon
were presented.
· The need to draw up a common agenda and establish coordination
mechanisms among public actors (National Government, Prefectures
and Municipal Governments) and private and social actors was identified
in order to formulate an Amazon macro-regional development strategy.
For all these
reasons and as a conclusion to the event:
· We emphasize the importance of the Amazon for our planet,
for our continent and for our country as it contains the greatest
diversity of ecosystems and species on earth. In this respect it
has a decisive value in the conservation of the planet’s biodiversity;
it is an enormous carbon reservoir trapped in its biomass; it is
one of the centres of the world water cycle, but above all it has
the potential of social diversity expressed through its indigenous
peoples and peasant communities that, because of their usage and
customs are the best guardians of the region and of life on this
planet.
· We ratify the country’s Amazon quality and its enormous
importance in contributing to the balanced development of Bolivia,
which must be established as a State policy.
· We affirm our strong conviction of the need to promote
comprehensive Amazon development in harmony with nature, with the
cultural wealth of the indigenous peoples, with a sound territorial
management and the Amazon identity which links indigenous identities
with those expressed from urban and peasant communities, based on
respect and appreciation of the forest, understood as a source of
life.
· From this standpoint, we propose that a development paradigm
be generated, responding to the Bolivian Amazon identity, that on
integrating economic issues with social issues will lead to the
development of a productive matrix based on sustainable use of natural
resources, on the generation of added value, on the equitable distribution
of wealth, on opportunities, and a greater association with the
national market.
· We take
on the need to promote, build, design and implement the Strategic
Development Plan for the Amazon Macro-Region, through wide participatory
processes in which state, indigenous, social, productive, academic
and citizen organizations and institutions at national, departmental,
regional and municipal level from the Bolivian Amazon Macro Region
actively and constructively intervene. This strategic plan will
cover as a priority:
o The productive
transformation of the forestry potential;
o Sustainable use of biodiversity for social benefit;
o Sustainable use and development of the energy potential for better
living conditions;
o Comprehensive development of transport and basic services facilities.
· We express our desire to give priority to solving the problems
of the more excluded sectors of the population, through overall
actions promoting development with medium and long term prospects
for this population.
· We recognize the fact that the Amazon identity has its
vital source in the reconstruction of indigenous identities. This
because it has been the indigenous struggles and mobilizations that
have positioned and made visible Amazon issues, even going beyond
national frontiers.
· On the occasion of the First Amazon Forum, the indigenous
peoples and peasant communities of the Amazon Macro-region gave
His Excellency the Constitutional President of the Republic, Evo
Morales Ayma, the programmatic content of their vision of the Amazon’s
sustainable development to be fully considered at the time of adopting
definitions regarding comprehensive public policies for the development
of the Bolivian Amazon.
· Regarding the hydroelectric dams to be built in Jirau and
San Antonio in Brazil, close to the frontier with Bolivia, the First
Amazon Forum shares and endorses the negotiations being made by
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic, transmitting to
its Brazilian counterpart, Bolivia’s concern over the potential
environmental, economic and social impacts of these projects in
the service area. Before this type of undertaking can be implemented
international agreements must be considered. It is evident that
any changes in a water course the size of the Madera River will
produce major impacts .What is debatable regarding the project is
not only the magnitude of the impacts but also the ethics of a country’s
decision to make another country take on a risk that it has not
sought, that will not provide it with any benefits and with which
it is in disagreement.
Based on these guidelines, a careful follow-up and implementation
will be made of the main recommendations expressed in the present
declaration, with a view to holding a second AMAZON FORUM to take
place in the Municipality of San Buenaventura.
Para llegar al
II FORO de DESARROLLO AMAZÓNICO se acuerda realizar talleres,
seminarios y otras actividades preparatorias con todos los actores
sociales, económicos e institucionales de la macro región
amazónica.
To prepare for the SECOND AMAZON DEVELOPMENT FORUM, it has been
agreed to carry out workshops, seminars and other preparatory activities
with all the social, economic and institutional actors of the Amazon
Macro-Region.
Guayaramerin, 19 June 2007
Signatures:
- State Ministers.
- National, Departmental and Local Authorities.
- Economic Organizations and Productive Sector Organizations.
- Social and Institutional Organizations of the Bolivian Amazon.
- Lecturers and Guests.
