Amazonia’s abundant natural resources underpin water, energy, food and health security for the people and economies of the region and far beyond. At the heart of this nexus of securities is water. So abundant in the region, but now under increasing threat as industrial and agricultural pollution increases, and extreme droughts reveal a once unthinkable water vulnerability.

Huge wealth continues to be generated from Amazonia’s vast natural resources, but with high environmental and social costs. And even as many of its nations seek to produce more energy, minerals, metals and agricultural commodities from the region to meet increasing national and global demand, Amazonia’s own citizens do not share equitably in the benefits.

This large-scale economic development in Amazonia has always been predicated on deforestation. But by compromising Amazonia’s ecosystems, deforestation is now threatening not only the wellbeing and rights of the region’s people, but also the economic sustainability of the very industries that it has enabled.