Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at an Inter-American Development Bank Roundtable with Ministers and Private Sector Representatives

As Prepared for Delivery Thank you, President Goldfajn, for convening this roundtable, and thank you all for joining. I am glad that we have been able to gather this group here today to discuss how businesses can support sustainable livelihoods and conservation in the Amazon and nature and biodiversity more broadly. There is a pressing need to halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity in the Amazon and globally. I was heartened to see that the rate of deforestation in the Amazon fell by half in 2023, but there is still much work to be done. This includes maintaining this positive rate of progress while recognizing that other areas important for biodiversity in Brazil, notably the Cerrado, are not seeing the same reversals.