The G7 countries have agreed to release $20 million for the Amazon, most of which will be used to send fire-fighting aircraft, a source in the French presidency said.
The 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 United Nations in September, a presidential aide said.
The announcement came from French President Emmanuel Macron, the host of this year's meeting of G7 leaders, and the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. Macron said that the Amazon represents the "lungs" of the planet and that leaders were studying the possibility of similar support in Africa, also suffering from fires in its rainforests.
Macron said the US supported the initiative, although he acknowledged that US President Donald Trump had skipped Monday's working session on the environment.
Satellites have recorded more than 41,000 fires in the Amazon region so far this year with more than half of those coming this month alone. Experts say most of the fires are set by farmers or ranchers clearing existing farmland.
Brazil would have to agree to any reforestation plan, as would indigenous communities living in 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.
Bolsonaro has lashed out at Macron over his criticism and suggested that NGOs could be setting the fires to embarrass him – without giving any evidence to back the claim.
But at the weekend Bolsonaro finally caved into international pressure to save a region crucial for maintaining a stable global climate, deploying two aircraft to douse the fires and authorising the army to help tackle the blazes.
Speaking in Biarritz, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said new planting was needed "to preserve this universal heritage, which is absolutely essential for the well-being of the world's population."
He said that the issue would be discussed during the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)
