France’s President Emmanuel Macron gives a joint-press conference with the US president in Biarritz, south-west France on August 26, 2019, on the third day of the annual G7 Summit attended by the leaders of the world’s seven richest democracies, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. (Photo: AFP)

BIARRITZ, France (AFP) — The G7 has agreed to spend 20 million euros (US$22 million) on the Amazon, mainly to send fire-fighting aircraft to tackle the huge blazes engulfing many parts of the world’s biggest rainforest, the presidents of France and Chile announced Monday.

The G7 club — comprising Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — has also agreed to support a medium-term reforestation plan which will be unveiled at the UN in September, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Chile’s Sebastian Pinera said at the G7 summit in southwest France.

Brazil would have to agree to any reforestation plan, as would indigenous communities living in the Amazon.

The initiative was announced after G7 leaders meeting in the resort of Biarritz held talks on the environment, focusing on the record number of fires destroying chunks of the Amazon.

Macron had declared the situation in the Amazon region an “international crisis” and made it one of the summit’s priorities.

He has threatened to block a huge new trade deal between the EU and Latin America unless Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change sceptic, takes serious steps to protect the forest from logging and mining.

“We must respond to the call of the forest which is burning today in the Amazon,” Macron said Monday.

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