A recent call from some 500 Indigenous peoples in Lima, Peru was to act against the threats that are destroying the largest tropical forest on the planet.

From Sept. 5 to 9, the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), will bring together delegates and representatives of the nine countries that make up the Amazon to present their threats and solutions and call for the union of peoples, states and international organizations to preserve the great lung of the planet.

The coordinator of COICA, Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, told EFE that "there is already 20% of the Amazon that is destroyed, contaminated by oil spills, illegal mining, deforestation, monoculture, cattle ranching... We want to restore it, but we still have 80% alive that we have to save for humanity."

He made an urgent call to hold responsible the countries that make up the region, such as Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, Bolivia, French Guyana, Colombia, Peru, Suriname and Ecuador, as well as the big governments that have committed to preserve the great forest.

The commitment is to save 80% of the Amazon before 2025, changing the way the world sees it as an inexhaustible source of resources.

"We want a strengthening of our communities, an economy that respects the forest that instead of making gold or oil, strengthens the economy of the jungle, the handicrafts that our communities make, tourism, native fruits, everything that the jungle produces, we do not need to destroy it," said Diaz Mirabal.

He is a native of the Kurripaco people who inhabit the Venezuelan Amazon basin, and pointed out that there is another form of wealth different from the exploitation of natural resources that also cares for the forest. But for this to happen, large companies and banks must make concessions that stop deforestation.

He also added that the oxygen delivered by the Amazon to the planet, like the drinking water of the basin he represents, is much more valuable than oil and gold and cannot be replaced.