Indigenous groups wants to protect 80 percent of the Amazon basin

Indigenous groups urged world leaders to protect 80 percent of the Amazon basin by 2025, during a nine-day conference in Marseille, where thousand policy makers, scientists are putting down the groundwork for United Nations talks on biodiversity in the Chinese city of Kunming in 2022.

"We invite the global community to join us to reverse the destruction of our home and by doing so safeguard the future of the planet," José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, lead coordinator for COICA, which represents Indigenous groups in nine Amazon-basin nations, told Reuters.

COICA wants the Marseille congress to endorse its "Amazonia80x2025" which is a declaration that aims to support their proposal.

In a study released in July by the Science Panel for the Amazon, based on research by 200 scientists, it has been concluded that the Amazon basin has lost 18 percent of its original forest cover while another 17 percent has been degraded.