 Good afternoon. I'm very excited to be here. It's very exciting to see these topics, the topics that we'll be discussing today in a stage as such an important event as the World Economic Forum. It's very exciting to see that. I will dare to say that most of us in this room agree that the way we're doing business, the way we're living our lives, the way we are consuming is just not sustainable. We are living off our savings account in this planet already. So we must change the way we do business. There's not such a thing as infinite growth. And I take as a premise that it is not development if it is not sustainable. And we are actually not only living off our savings account, as I will say, but we're also crippling the ability of the systems of this planet to restore and produce the natural resources that we need to live in this planet. So I'm glad to be here with a group of experts coming from different areas. And we hope today we're going to have a very open discussion, open conversation, and we hope to answer just one basic question. Hopefully by the end of this session we will have an answer. And it's basically to have a common vision on the region of how to manage this asset than the Amazon is. And that is part of seven different countries. There is no unity in how to deal with the harnessing and sustainable the resources that the Amazon provides, the ecosystem services. There's no single policy. So hopefully we address that today. How can we develop a common vision to deal with the sustainable harnessing of the Amazon and the protection of the Amazon? That is so important for our long-term economic sustainable in this planet and in this region as well. So I would like to briefly start by introducing our panelists. Let me start with Yvonne. She's the Secretary of State for the Yasuni ITT initiative of Ecuador, Juan Carlos Castilla. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Planetary Skin Institute of the USA. Roberto Salas is the Chief Executive Officer of Mascisa, Chile. And Virgilio Mauricio Viana, the General Director of Fundación Amazona Sustentable from Brazil. So I would like to start this conversation by asking Juan Carlos to bring us up to speed in terms of the health of the Amazon. Where are we right now? Right. So from a scientific and technological perspective, the current state of the Amazon is that there are multiple assets that form part of the natural infrastructure which is represented by the Amazon basin. For example, the fact that it hosts 15% of total world biodiversity. For example, that 20% of all fresh water entering into the global oceans comes from the Amazon and its territories. For example, that the Amazon basin holds 15 years worth of greenhouse emissions in terms of carbon stored in the biomass. And the list could go on and on and on. And yet we have that asset and that natural infrastructure. And yet there are quite significant risks that we're facing with the Amazon basin as an ecosystem. And a point of note perhaps to focus our minds is the fact, the statistical and scientific fact that over the last seven years there have been four very significant extreme events affecting the Amazon basin. There have been two 1 in 100 year flood events and two at least 1 in 100 drought events. Now by simple ecosystem signs, when a system oscillates between two extremes, it is a sign, an early warning sign that the whole ecosystem may be in the rapid transition process from one equilibrium stage which is the Amazon as we know today into a savanna. And that would have two drastic consequences to even consider not only on the fact that 15 years worth of global greenhouse emissions would be emitted in a relatively short period of time, but also affecting of course the rainfall patterns not only of Brazil and Argentina, but globally. And the tipping points are signs, of course, doesn't ever want to be precise because there's always uncertainty in the signs, but what is becoming clear and clear over time is that there are two important tipping points to get to such catastrophic consequences. And one tipping point is related to the average global temperature reaching about 3.5 degrees centigrade. And let us know that global temperature has increased since pre-industrial times already 0.8 of a degree centigrade. And another tipping point is related to the fact of total deforested area in the Amazon basin. And the tipping point there is about 40% of the total area. And let me note again that we have already consumed half of that tipping point because 20% of the whole Amazon basin has been deforested. Now the difference between the two tipping points is important for us in terms of policymaking, in terms of investment, in terms of what science and technology can do to understand the risk, but also to solve for the very complex problem that we have at hand that you articulated in the beginning. The first tipping point, the global temperature increase, is a global issue. The Amazon countries have a role to play, but it is a minor role to play versus the bigger picture of global greenhouse emissions. However, on the second tipping point, it is very much a regional issue. It is very much a country-by-country issue and a regional issue to go beyond top-down policies of, for example, in Brazil being successful, relatively successful in reducing the deforestation rate by 80% in the last few years. So there are implications associated to that, of course, on the practical side, what to do about that. So on two fronts, we believe that there are significant opportunities to do something about that. One first opportunity is related to getting a hold and being very precise, as precise as we can get, in terms of developing an early warning system for the Amazon as a whole in order to avoid and to inform decision-makers at the governmental level, in the private sector, in the communities involved, whether we are in effect in a runaway situation, and how can we avoid that situation? So one is an area related to risk management and Pan-Amazonia early warning system for that. But the other angle is very much an opportunity, because, of course, every risk has also, the other side is our Chinese friends always remind us, every risk has a great and important opportunity. And the opportunity that we see, and it's actually being championed by some Brazilian leaders in the science and technology field, is related to establishing a completely new model for the Amazon, which is a high-tech innovation model that looks at the biodiversity in the Amazon, and that uses the best of high technology, advanced biotechnology, nanotechnology, biomimicry, molecular genomics, and a number of very advanced science and technology development that can develop a high-tech model that, of course, requires a Silicon Valley equivalent for the Amazon, and that has a number of preconditions as an alternative way or rather a complementary way to more sustainable activity in the agricultural frontier of the Amazon, which, of course, goes through or needs to go through a very significant increase in productivity increases, not to encourage further into the Amazon. Thank you. At this point, just to conclude, are we getting to these tipping points faster, or is it slowing down? No, I think we would argue that the four extreme weather events, large weather events in the Amazon in the last seven years, is a wake-up call, a huge wake-up call, that we have to get our act together. We can't just pretend it doesn't exist, so we can't be precise about that, but I would argue that the evidence, statistical evidence, risk management statistical evidence is that we are approaching a transition into something that we can't control really. Thank you for giving us a clear picture of what's going on and the options and possibilities that actually remain. I would like now to hear Yvonne because you have a pretty interesting project going on. Tell us a little bit about that leaving oil in the ground to protect the Amazon. How does a country actually get to achieve something like that? That's a very good question because how it's not easy. It's not easy for a country like Ecuador that still depends on oil. Our first source of income is still oil, and with all this difficult decision, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, in the year 2007, he took a very courageous decision and he presented this initiative, the Yasuni initiative, as an idea at that moment, as an idea during the General Assembly of the United Nations, as an idea to move our dependency of oil into alternative energy in the next 13-20 years. And he said we have a place in the Amazon called the Yasuni, which is around 1 million hectares of the Amazon of Ecuador, that place specifically, where climate change has never affected that specific place because of the geographical position of that place, which is just in the intersection of the equatorial line and the Andes mountains. And just because of giving, being there in that position, a little higher than the rest of the Amazon, climate change never affected it, not even during the last Ice Age, 12,000 years ago, when the Amazon became a savanna, except this place, the Yasuni. That's why the word Yasuni in the Warani language means sacred land. It was protected, according to them, because of that position. So all the animals from the Amazon came to the Yasuni. That's why we have the highest biodiversity of flora and fauna, but also we have indigenous communities that live there in voluntary isolation, the Tagueres and the Romainani. But we have another richness, as you mentioned, Igola, is that it's oil on the ground. 20% of the oil of Ecuador is under the Yasuni ITT. The ATT is the Spingo Tambococha-Tibutini fields that are under the ground of the Yasuni initiative. So President Correa said, Ecuador is ready to do this because we believe in preservation. It's not about just talk. We always talk about the need of preserving, but one thing is the need, the other thing is the will to do it. So he said we would like to do that because Ecuador believes in living in harmony with nature and because the only constitution, or one of the only constitutions in the world that gives rights to nature is the Ecuadorian constitution. That they say in the first, you know, the constitution of Ecuador says that because the mother earth cannot talk, we have to give it rights as we give the human, human rights. The earth has to have the rights also. So this was the way he presented and he said what we need is the co-responsibility of the developed world to give us contribution half of what we will get if we exploit the oil of the Yasuni. The studies that were done according to the studies in 2007, we had around a billion barrels. Maybe we have much more if we do it now, but at the time the studies they gave around 1,846 million barrels of oil. The price was 40, 45 dollars a barrel after the investments that we needed. They said that the results will be around 7.2 billion that we will get at that time. And what we asked is 3.6 billion in the next 13 years at that time. That was 2007. Well it was an idea. Now it's a reality. We created a trust fund with the United Nations Development Program and it was a little difficult to do the trust fund because it's a different trust fund. It took three years to be able to make. And now we have a trust fund. We have a board of directors that it's administered, I mean the fund is administered by UNDP. It has members of the board, the countries that have supported the initiative. In this case now it's Italy and Spain. We have indigenous communities that are members of the board. We have a Warani woman and a Kichwa man that's member of the board. And of course the government of Ecuador, the ministry of the secretary of strategic projects and also the one that is the project that we have because the capital that comes to the fund goes to alternative energy. And the interest they go for conservation, social development of the people that live there and science and investigation technologies to investigate because we have not anything of investigation. So these are the only points where the money can go. So as I said, now it's a reality. I'm heading the negotiations group since 2011. I mean I started 2010 at the end because the trust fund was created at the end of 2010. From 2011 we did an internal campaign to create awareness with the people of Ecuador first. To have the people of Ecuador be proud of having a place that is unique and why we have to save it. It was a very successful campaign internally. And last year we did the campaign internationally. We started the international campaign. It was called I am Yasuni. It's taking the Yasuni to the world. We couldn't do it because it's not easy to bring the people to the Yasuni. But we took, we call it a sensorial tunnel, that it's like a part of Yasuni to different places. Like when we went to Rio Plastuante, we had the tunnel, we won among the first prize for that tunnel, which is like entering into the Yasuni. A small piece of the sounds of the jungle, the smell, and the warani message. Why we want to preserve that place. So that was the last year's campaign. And in fact we have now partnered with around 19 countries that have supported the initiative. We opened it to the civil society and the private sector and NGOs. We have many companies that are partnering with us. We have civil society that can give any amount. And we have arrived to around 367 million now that we have as contribution, co-responsibility. But it's still the awareness not yet there. And that's why sometimes they ask me why isn't that the president is saying that we haven't seen the reaction of what we're doing. Those that are giving are mostly developing countries. Some of them are developed countries. And the majority of, well companies, of course, because those are companies that they care for sustainable development. But the awareness of really something new. It's a new idea of prevention. It's about prevention, not about remediation. It's not about cutting the trees and doing a reforestation like was done in Brazil. It's about not cutting the trees and being, you know, supported by not doing that. Let me ask you a question regarding that. It's definitely a very innovative model. Very innovative. Do you see a model like that working on a regional basis like in other countries? What have been the reactions of the other countries? That's what we wanted. In fact, we were talking about uniting the Amazon countries together to work on something of protecting the whole Amazon, not just the piece of the Amazon. When we did the trust fund, you're talking about the region. When we did the trust fund, the first country that supported the initiative, even if it was a symbolic support, it was Chile. The second one was Colombia and Peru. With Peru, we are getting a support that it's symbolic, I said, in amounts. But it reflects that there is care. We would like very much to have more of this. And when we were in the last meeting in Davos, with meetings with Han Carlos, when Carlos started in Dubai, in the World Economic Forum of Dubai, the idea was exactly that. Because Carlos was there to create this kind of how to save the Amazon, like what we're doing now. How can we work together? If we are together, it will be by far more impressive in showing the world that the Amazon is being saved by the countries that belong to the Amazon. Because if you talk to scientists, they tell you that in order to regulate climate change, we have to save the Amazon. To regulate climate change, we have to save the Amazon. Thank you. Very interesting. Let's go to the business perspective. We'd like to hear about the business perspective. Yesterday, I was in this panel talking precisely about the trade-offs between sustainability, sustainable development, and the economic growth of countries. And we were talking about the Amazon as well. And actually, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank mentioned that of this road that is being built from connecting the East Coast to the West Coast of the continent. So trade can be done from Brazil to the Western countries. So for me, I mean, and of course, they're saying that that will help develop the region also in terms of sustainable development. But in reality, I'm not an expert. I don't pretend to be. But for me, that's just regular development. I mean, we're just putting a road. There's no way to build an environmental friendly road through a virgin pristine forest. So for me, that's just normal development. But still, I mean, it's needed because it's fair and the trade of the country and the economic development needs to be growth. So how do you manage that? How a regional approach to the protection of the Amazon and the sustainable development of the Amazon will help or affect your business? Let me talk about a very expanding perspective. Usually in the business sector, there is a line for incentives. But I think that in the last at least 10 or 15 years from the 92, perhaps 20 years with a new way of thinking about sustainability, the balance in sustainability and business, profit and planet and people. It's created a more important companies and people, managers, CEOs and businessmen and entrepreneurs that are more aligned with this kind of philosophy. But for a very important reason, we have some way of thinking that we would like to understand the roots of the problems. In the case of the forestation in Amazon or even in other areas, for example, in the Chaco area region in Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia, we can find the same reasons. For example, one of the reasons is the market itself. For example, let me tell you some numbers. The total amount of forestry worldwide is more or less 4 billion hectares, 4,000 millions of hectares. And the 7 percent of the forestry is planted forestry. And the 7 percent contribute with the 50 percent of the production of formal goods for the market to supply the demand. So when you see this, probably we can have some solution using this kind of statistics. We say for example that yes, that the answer is yes, because if we promote a more responsible way to manage the forestry business to increase, to double probably the level of the production of the responsible and sustainable forestry, we are going to mitigate one of the principal reasons for what the forestation occurs in the Amazon and in other parts. For clarity of education, and just because I think it's important what you're saying, because it relates a lot to what you do, can you clarify what is it what you do? What is massima? So the audience knows? Maybe for example, we are working in two main new standards of the sustainable forestry. The number one with the WWF, we are part of the multi-sector group to develop the new standard of the forestry for the next years. What is that? It's to balance in a better way the environmental and social way to plan and to execute the forestry project in the future. And to contribute not just for the supply of the demand, but in the way that we do that and the way we create the value. So with these kind of new standards, we try to balance the contribution to the former supply for one side and on the other side to improve quality of life with the local communities, mainly indigenous communities that are living in these areas. And on the other part, obviously, to contribute to the reduction of emissions and all the effects of the forestry. So yeah, can you just give us a brief of what your business is? We are in massima, it's a company in the forestry business. We have more or less 242,000 of hectares in many countries in Chile, mainly Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela. With this forestry, we sell wood and at the same time we recycle the waste of this wood process set to manufacture panels for furniture like this. I hope that this furniture will be made with a massisa panel, but it's not a problem. But in the same time, for example, we see with very, very good eyes what is happening, for example, in the Amazon. In the Amazon, for example, we learn from the Avina Foundation and some information that we have because we are very close to Avina Foundation that in the last five years, as you mentioned, with the monitoring and with incentives to the preservation and the new efforts in the multilateral collaborative projects, they are saving deforestation an amount of land equivalent to Costa Rica plus Salvador. That's very good news. How we can do to replicate that in other parts, for example, in Chaco or in other areas that this is a problem today. In fact, the Avina Foundation was the first one to give us also from foundations, private sector to give us money for the Yasuni project. I learned that. I'm proud of that, Shah. Thank you. You have joined us in this panel. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much, Roberto. We'll hear you. Why don't you tell us briefly what you do? I am the director general of Amazon Sustainable Foundation, which is a non-profit organization, Brazilian one based in Manaus in the Amazon. And we work with developing solutions for communities in the Amazon. We work currently with 541 communities in the rainforest. And we promote all kinds of issues running from education to health to income generation, everything around one simple strategy. We need to make forests worth more standing than cut to those people who live there. Because people cut the forest not because they're stupid or ignorant. They cut the forest because they see that as an opportunity to improve their livelihood. So what we're working is to make them see the forest as more valuable standing. And in order to do that, we're investing forest management, fisheries management, and also something which I believe is one of the solutions for the Amazon, which is payment for environmental services. The forest is a major provider of services. And we just don't account for those services. We don't value those services. And we take a sort of a free lunch on the benefits the forest is providing to all of us. And that is, I think, one of the key elements that we need to change for the future of the Amazon. So how can you work in making these local communities that you work with, fantastic work, to live in a more sustainable way, knowing that they need this income they're taking from the forest in order to improve their lives, as you were saying. How can you work on educating them to live more sustainable lives? The first step is to value these services. And just if I can show one image there of the services provided by the rainforest, we have to value and measure this. And for this, we have very good science at the moment on how to measure the flow of humidity. First of all, it starts with the measurement of the services provided by the forest. So it comes from outside? No, it comes from inside. It's the number of services, but I'll just highlight the water service. The forest produces water through the process of photosynthesis. And that is as a water pump. So the humidity that generates rainfalls in Ecuador comes from eastern Amazonia. So we're all connected, and this environmental service has a value. It not only sends humidity to Ecuador, but also sends humidity to southern South America, to Argentina, and to southern Brazil, which feeds agriculture. And it also feeds hydropower generation. So we should insert in the electricity bill a part of the payment for the Amazon that generates rain for the rest of the continent. And in the second aspect, and I don't see the image, maybe the help desk could put the image in there. Is it possible to put an image on this? There was, I think it was there when you came. Yeah, there was an image there. Thank you. I think maybe there we go. Because this is a very intuitive way of seeing what I've just described. It's the flow of humidity in the globe. And there you see hour by hour, day by day, month by month. And if you have a look at the Amazon, we're here. We're here in Peru. And the humidity that is pumped across the globe has a major influence of the rainforests. So the generation of electricity here in southern Brazil, the agricultural production, and supply to cities depends on the Amazon. So we need to value that. So what do we do? First is to value this, especially in terms of carbon and water, and then create a revenue stream that we invest in communities through two things. First is education. And second is through income. So it's the pocket and the brain and consciousness. That's the dual approach. And for that we do with a number of private sector partners. Most of our funding is from the private sector. The Amazonas Foundation has just grown to become the largest Brazilian foundation as of last year. We have one partner here, a merit international hotels, who was one of the pioneer investors in developing a private partnership in protecting the rainforest. So I'm a strong believer in valuing what we're seeing here. Now this flow of water in this little film here, what is white is water vapor and what is yellowish are storms. So this is something that we have to give value and also see that we're all interconnected. Ecuador depends on Brazil. And then we depend on Ecuador because the rivers that feed the Amazon come from Ecuador, from Colombia, from Peru. Actually, the Amazon River starts in Peru. So we send humidity through the clouds and receive it back through the river. So we need to work more together and I strongly agree with the vision of Ivan in the sense that we should have more cooperation, more South-South cooperation within the region so that we share lessons learned. It's doable. It's possible to reduce deforestation. Brazil has reduced deforestation by 80 percent, more than 80 percent, and very well measured. So will it be fair to say that while we outside don't look for a way to value these environmental services that is obvious the Amazon provides in terms of climate regulation, rain, water cycles and all of that, it's going to be more difficult to help these local communities to live a sustainable life within the Amazon? Well, we have to come up with financing. And the problem is that these communities usually small. They don't have lots of votes and it's much more expensive to provide education and health services and income opportunities to them. So we need to find new creative ways to finance this. And one of the ways, in my opinion, is through carbon, through water services and biodiversity. There are different approaches. How will coming back to the question that we hope to answer here today, how will a common framework on the region will help that goal of bringing these communities together? I think, first of all, we should go united in international negotiations. We are suffering the failure of Copenhagen, the climate change negotiations, which were basically a frustration. And we need to go together to these fora and make the case that we should have instruments to value these services. We should come together in the international trade negotiations because a cell phone that comes from Manaus. Manaus is the largest producer of cell phones in Brazil, one of the largest in Latin America. It's the largest producer of motorcycles in the whole Americas. A motorcycle that is produced in Manaus should be text differently than a motorcycle coming from China because the ecological footprint is the opposite. So we should be more aggressive, more creative in finding ways to come up with the appropriate financing for sustainable development in the Amazon. We should not just depend on the treasury of the national governments or the state governments because it's a different logic. And I think we should see that in the national interest. Oftentimes, we as South Americans, we tend to look at conserving the Amazon as an outside agenda imposed on us. But rather, we should see protecting the rainforest as in the interest of Brazil, of Ecuador, in Colombia, and so on. And that is subtle, but it's a huge difference. We're not talking to the Europeans or to North Americans. Only, of course, it has a value to the rest of the planet. But more importantly, it has a value to us as Latin Americans. Yeah, thank you. Nicolas, maybe I can compliment that great framework of valuing ecosystem services. Yesterday, we had a fascinating discussion orchestrated by our friends here at the forum and by Leo sitting here on the concept of natural infrastructure, of the Amazon being a key representative of that concept of natural infrastructure. And the linkage is this. When we talk about infrastructure, we typically think about physical infrastructure, the roads, the telecommunications, the energy infrastructure, the water infrastructure. By the way, the numbers in the next 18 years, by however you cut the numbers, the infrastructure capex required in the next 18 years is around about 60 trillion US dollars. A part of it, a large part of it, has to do with closing the gaps, particularly in emerging markets. But a significant portion has to do with maintenance of that physical infrastructure. And so the linkage is, through the great story that our friend was commenting on the water cycle, if we can link those investment and creative financing mechanisms to deploy that physical infrastructure, if we can deploy and divert a portion of those large financial flows into protecting and maintaining natural infrastructure, we can reduce the physical capex needs. Let me give you a very specific example, which I've been thinking ever since our conversation yesterday. Given that in Brazil, for example, a large portion of the energy matrix and of the certain countries of the region, of the energy matrix is hydro, if for any reason the ecosystem service provided in the water cycle and in the regional transport of water ceases to be as predictable as it is today, which by the way it's happening already, then the hydro needs and the capex associated with alternative forms of more polluting energy will increase and therefore it is in our enlightened self-interest as an investor, as a policymaker, as a private investor in energy infrastructure to reduce my capex needs if I invest strategically out of my own self-benefit in maintaining natural infrastructure. There you have a large pool of funds which are associated to the physical infrastructure that is highly dependent on the stability and the maintenance of natural infrastructure with the Amazon being the iconic natural infrastructure class. So with, I mean, all the perspectives have been put on the table, communities, business, a project that is working and is different and the science, how can we mix everything, put everything together to actually come out, come up with a with a framework, a regional framework that actually works. I was talking to a friend before this meeting and she reminded me of this Winston Churchill phrase after the war that he said that if I want to talk to Europe, who should I call? So we can apply that to the Amazon right now. There's no Amazon regional organization. A regional one that is actually taking a regional framework. Is it working? It is working but it needs more. I think there is a lack of leadership there to unite them. I don't want to criticize anyone. I think they have very good people but it's still always the bureaucratic part takes over and instead of being an institution that unites us for the purposes of creating like you mentioned, environmental service. This is what we have to focus on. This is something that because everything is based on how much we get out of it. I mean, when you mention about the wood that it's being cut because the needs of the people are there because they have to cut economic, you know, income. Ecotourism is one, of course, but it destroys if you don't do it the right way. So they have to do it somewhere. But if you put the environmental service and you give the biodiversity has something, I mean, you have to put value to it. What is the value? I'm sure that if the Amazon was in another place of the world, long time ago they would have made us pay for it for the service that we're giving because of the Amazon. So something of that should be done. And I think this organization is working on other issues than the issue of creating the value of what the Amazon really is and the power of it. And the other thing is that like all kinds of meetings that you get together, always you talk and talk. And then when you go to your countries, you forget everything of what really the issue is. And the issue is that you cannot forget of the strength that we have together. And it's a strength. So when you go to the meetings, everything looks wonderful. And then when you go out of it, it just goes to every priority that every country has instead of creating the priority together. I would say, Nicolas, that unfortunately, this scenario is not very positive. We don't have an institutional framework in place, although we do have formerly OTCA, which stands for the Organization of the Treaty of Cooperation of the Amazon countries. It has a formal institution run by diplomats. It's based in Brasilia. So the question is, does it work? Should we follow that path? Well, I think... Should something different be created? I think it has the same problems as the UN has. It's the right institution doing the right thing, but at a very slow speed. And the problem is that we have... Toward the right direction? It's in the right direction. It's doing the right things, but at a very slow speed. It's just like the UN. It's doing the right things. The discourse is right, but it just doesn't have the urgency that the planet needs. So the question to all of us that I think we should ask is what business, what civil society and government should do to speed up the process of change. We need urgent changes in our lifestyles and in the way we deal with the Amazon. And I should add that although it's very important for us to realize the value of the Amazon for our countries, it's also important for the rest of the world to realize the value of the Amazon to the rest of the planet. The United States, for example, runs a sort of a free lunch on the services that also the Amazon for us provide to the agricultural production in North America. And that should be valued and compensated for. So we need a movement and I think that's a question that maybe we want to address here. I would say that we will depend more on civil society and business to move quickly because governments are too slow and too compromising. And this is me saying having been state secretary for five years. I'm no longer in office, so I can say this. So we need to be more effective and quicker because the planet is going down the road. I think there's also needs to be regulation in a regional level. And that cannot be provided by the private sector or social sector or citizens. Although I do agree that it needs to be. Yeah, no, I'm sure that governments have a role. But for example, as we were discussing in this morning, it's important for the business and civil society to help governments come up with the right policies because oftentimes we need to have an equal playing field so that all companies in the same segregated tourism and travel sector, they have to have a similar tax structure. That needs to be provided by government. But how is that going to be designed? I think that is something that business and civil society can help governments in designing clever and smart policies. What's your take on this? I think that in all the meetings that I participate about sustainability issues or financial issues linked to the sustainability challenges, as the red, for example, or as the biobond, there always is the same conclusion. We have to collaborate better. But this is urgently why it doesn't happen. And that's the key of the point. What we have to do different to convert concepts into actions and to get results. Perhaps one of the most important things is it's not just to know what to do, it's how. And then we know the how is who. And the who I think is the most important part because all the big changes is just when you do that when you have strong leadership. That's the key point. The leaders have to the power and the courage of other people to maintain the institutions stick when they're on purpose. And then, for example, we can find for example the water issues. We can have a lot of very good examples of leadership that they bring to the table the problems and they solve it. And a lot of other issues that we are still working and we're still talking. And what happened? Very low level. Let me talk about, for example, all the incentives in the financial area. For example, the first time that I heard about the ecosystem payment, the service of the ecosystem services payment. This was perhaps seven years ago. We are our company is a carbon positive company because we have forests. We have a lot of the way to neutralize our emissions in the factories. But the value of the carbon that we can trade is a shame. It's very low. So there's nothing setting for anybody. How we can convert that in really an opportunity. So leadership is the number one in my concept to prioritize somebody in some part. And not just in one country because we agree that this is part of the conglomerate of countries. But we need a new way to govern the planet. In the last conference, the World Finance Council, for example, what are the changes that we have to do? We talk about the new corporate governance. We need also new ways to governance the regional or multi-regional institutions. And nobody's doing that. In the financial area, for example, after the crisis in the 2009, for example, we have to change the financial industry in all the world, mainly not just in the United States. And what happened? Nothing. Nothing. So what is the driver to change this? And to put in the table, to talk with very open way. From a business perspective, that's a question for me to you. What do you think needs to happen? We think, for example, in the business sector without any doubt, we need to learn to work together with other institutions, mainly with NGOs and governments. And why? Because for many years, government and NGOs, they compete each other. And NGOs with business sector, for many years, they just went to talk to us for money 20 years ago or 15 years ago. That is changing. But we need a more interaction to understand better the role and to find out two things. Number one, common interest. But real common interest, that project that goes directly to the way that the company creates value and how social issues we realize that they are part of the strategy. And number two is to understand each other, not just in the challenges, but in the way that we have to do that. And then, for example, we have a wonderful experience, for example, in the country where somebody can tell you this is impossible. For example, in Venezuela. In Venezuela in the last five years, we don't talk really with the central government, but we find a lot of opportunities to create social value, operational efficiency in the factories that are in the rural areas, with the local government. So the potential partners in the local government, municipalities, mayors, there are a lot of them that are really part of the new trend. For example, in the Amazonia, we knew, for example, Avena and other NGOs, they have programs for green municipalities with very high level of success, that they are part of this process to monitoring. Because they are good politicians that they won't really make a good contribution to the people. And their companies see an opportunity. Because we need that part of the communities, they are progressing at the same time that the company is progressing. This is part of our feelings, our philosophy. So this way of to create not just financial capital growth, but social capital growth, making preservation in the environment, that's part of the new way to do business, yes. And each company has their own philosophy, but this philosophy is gaining a lot of priorities. But when we see, for example, a very big project, for example, with governments, we have to be more passionate to understand and to find out what are the real interests in depth and how we can bring social institutions, communities, and to create value with strong leadership and measuring. Thank you. Let's get a couple of questions from the audience to see what's their outside perspective. Anybody have a question to the panelists? I have a question for Mr. Vianna. Can you say your name? My name is Kurt Hawley from Rainforest Expeditions from Peru. I have a question for Mr. Vianna about, I can't remember if it was a year or two years ago, there was a good piece of news about Brazil having really reduced its deforestation rates in the Amazon. And my question is, what were the causes or what were the enabling conditions for this result in the Brazilian Amazon? What caused the reduction of deforestation rates in Brazil for a year or two? Brazil has, first of all, a very good monitoring system of deforestation. We have monthly data, which is published freely in the Internet, all the maps, the raw maps, and we have annual figures, and this is very transparent, and this is something which increases a lot the participation of civil society. So deforestation rates are published basically every month in all Brazilian newspapers. There's something either good or bad. So I think, first of all, it's transparency and accountability on the information. And secondly, were a number of policies that were implemented, and I happened to be in government at that time in 2003, a number of state governments, and that speaks a little bit to what Salas was mentioning, not the federal government, but the state governments in the Amazon implemented a number of very progressive policies, including the first climate change policy at the state level, which was enacted in 2007. And there were a number of policy instruments that I would say had an impact. Of those, I would highlight the expansion of protected areas in the state of Amazon as along, we went from 7 million hectares to 19 million hectares of protected areas, and these areas were established in critical regions in terms of pressure for deforestation. The second were a number of policies intended to increase the value of forest products. For example, we zeroed all the taxes on non-timber forest products, so making them more economically attractive. So that economic signal also created something that changed behavior, and I would say that the perspective of valuing forest carbon was also something that became a part of people's mindset, the expectation, which in a way has not been fulfilled because of the international negotiations, but I think combination of these things provided the result. But it's not to say that the game is over and we have solved the problem. We have just reduced the pace of deforestation, but deforestation is still happening. So in order to have a long-term win, I think we have to have an economic victory, and there's victories to make forests worth more standing than cut. Thank you. Any other questions? Enrique, please. I wanted to ask the panel if they think that... State your name, please. My name is Enrique Acevedo, and I wanted to ask the panel if, given the presence of organized crime in the Amazonas and their involvement with deforestation and mining activities, the presence maybe of UN peacekeepers in the zone might be a possibility or a multinational force that tries to combat organized crime in that region, which is one of the main reasons of how the Amazon is doing right now. I would say this is unknown. If you say this to any Brazilian, no one is considering a multinational force or anything of this nature. I think we, not only as Brazilians, but as other Amazonian countries, we have the means to take care of the security issue. That's not to say that the drug problem is not a problem. I mean, security is an issue in the US or in Europe or all over the world. So we all need to cooperate on this. But I think that one issue which is missing in this meeting here in Lima is the issue of legalizing some drugs, because I think that's a hot topic now. Uruguay has already legalized. There was this report done by the President of Colombia, President of Brazil, and President of Mexico who make this case very strongly, and I think this is something that needs to be more debated. Or at least decriminalized drugs, not legalized. Decriminalized, yes. It's easier to decriminalize it than to legalize it. That's a good first step. And by the way, that issue on drugs, etc., is very much a demand issue. It's not a supply issue. In fact, if you reduce supply, you will increase the prices in the streets of New York, and the traffickers will be better off. And to connect it to the forestation issue, for example, at least in Colombia, the war on drugs, it's a big cost for the forestation because, I mean, they're just cutting off plantations of cocaine, and the growers just move further into the forest, cutting clear cut, more forest, and the government comes back cutting all the new plantations, and the process is an ongoing issue. But on the other hand, the idea that sparks in my mind for that great question, nevertheless, on the security, is that there is an argument to be made on regional security and security, which is the weather extreme phenomenon that is related to ongoing climate change, has a security angle, a very important security angle, that is of the self-interest of the nations involved and pan-regionally, to do something about for their own enlightened self-interest of reducing the security risks that they have. In this case, not drug trafficking risks, but other type of risks. Thank you. Well, the time is up. I want to thank you all for coming. Thanks to the panelists. I'm very excited to have been part of this. It's, as I told you before, it's very exciting to see a stage where these very important and critical issues are being discussed in the World Economic Forum type of events. It's evident now from the business perspective, the community perspective, government, and science that a common framework needs to be developed. But it's my sense that this is just a conversation, a beginning conversation, and as a starting point, and the conversation has to go on. And we can't, even though it's very frustrating, as you were saying, we keep meeting and talking about the issues, but we can stop. I mean, it's something that we need to come up with a solution. So thank you very much. I just want to end up by reading a very short paragraph that I thought it was food for thought. If we were to calculate the cost of the services the Amazon provides and consider the permanent destruction of value we are causing for destroying it, and compare it with the short-term value its destruction is generating, every reasonable person, politician, economist, businessman, will agree that humanity will be better off if the Amazon is left untouched. Thank you very much.