Colombian anthropologist and Right Livelihood Laureate Martin von Hildebrand took office as Secretary-General of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) during the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) in Cali, Colombia.
As head of the intergovernmental organisation formed by eight Amazonian countries, he will lead its efforts to address environmental challenges threatening the world’s largest rainforest and its rich biodiversity.
The appointment of von Hildebrand, who was put forward to the position by the Colombian government, was welcomed by the scientific community and Indigenous peoples gathered in Cali for a two-week summit to protect biodiversity, which ended last Friday.
With more than 50 years of experience working closely with Indigenous communities around the Amazon, von Hildebrand, 81, said his main focus in his new post would be preventing reaching a “point of no return” for the tropical rainforest.
He spoke to Right Livelihood just before moving to Brasilia to assume his new diplomatic position for the next three years. He said he was happy about the wide consensus regarding his appointment.
“People were content and celebrated my appointment,” he said with a wide smile.
ACTO was founded in 1978 when Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela signed The Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) to promote joint action for achieving the sustainable development of the Amazon Region. Since then, the work that was meant to be driven forward by the eight countries’ foreign ministers has failed to advance the cooperation. During the 2023 Amazon Summit in Belém do Pará, Brazil, state leaders agreed to give ACTO a new impulse.
“They opened the participation to Indigenous peoples, local communities, scientists, and civil society,” von Hildebrand said about the decision during the 2023 summit. “It is fundamental because the possible answers to the Amazon’s problems can’t be handled by governments alone. It is the people who are on the ground in the jungle, so it is only with them that we can protect the forest.”
He sees the current moment as crucial to preserving the Amazon’s ecosystem and with it, global weather patterns. The rainforest produces what von Hildebrand calls “flying rivers”: clouds formed over the forest carry rain throughout the entire continent from the US to Argentina. If the ecosystem were to break down, it would have a devastating impact globally.
Stopping deforestation and restoring economic alternatives and security are also among ACTO’s concerns.
“Security is a key issue because there is a lot of insecurity in the Amazon, unfortunately,” von Hildebrand explained. “It’s not only drug trafficking, which is well-known. Ninety-eight per cent of fires in the region are caused by humans due to deforestation. Illegal mining and many other illegal activities are managed by illicit groups. So if there is no security and someone starts working on these issues in the field, they expose themselves to being killed or kidnapped. That’s why security is essential. But it is also about education and comprehensive health related to community life and the environment.”
Von Hildebrand will also aim to build a joint position among the eight Amazon countries to present at the COP30 UN climate conference next year, in November 2025, set to be held in Belém do Pará.
“My role is to create spaces for dialogue and try to get people to agree because the Amazon is one unit,” he said. “There is one Amazon where eight or nine countries are present. But we need to start looking at the Amazon as that large ecosystem with interdependent parts.”
The road to COP30
Von Hildebrand, who is an anthropologist by training, founded Gaia Amazonas in 1990 as a Colombian NGO supporting indigenous governance initiatives. To broaden this mission, he invited other civil society organisations to form the Amazon Consolidation Program (COAMA). In 1999, COAMA received the Right Livelihood Award “for showing how indigenous people can improve their livelihood, sustain their culture and conserve their rainforests.”
His mission continues even today: over the last two weeks, he took part in the COP16 gathering in Colombia. The meeting was meant to gather different countries and sectors to agree on measures to protect biodiversity. It achieved an agreement to protect marine areas and the new Cali Fund to share the benefits of using digital sequence information on genetic resources. However, it felt short in deciding who would pay for conservation and how the costs would be divided.
Von Hildebrand looks at the conference from the perspective of the hosting country: pondering the participation of civil society and the official organisation over the discussions or the outcomes.
“This COP was for the communities,” he said. Indeed, the recognition of Afro-descendants, Indigenous and local peoples as guardians of biodiversity is among the main highlights of COP16.
With 23,000 registered delegates and 900,000 visitors, Colombia’s COP was the most attended biodiversity conference in history, despite guerrilla groups’ threats some weeks before telling attendants not to come. The Colombian government responded, saying that they would guarantee everyone’s security.
“The handling of security was extraordinary; there were uniformed soldiers and police, but some were here, some were there,” von Hildebrand noted. “They were friendly, smiling, collaborative. You did not feel threatened or that they were there defending. It was enjoyable.”
Overall, he said he was impressed by his country’s organisation of the conference.
“Colombia achieved what it set out to do: it achieved civil participation and community integration in the decisions,” he said.
