BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday put forward his vision for how the Amazon rainforest should be protected.

Lula outlined a future that didn’t depend on donations from wealthy nations and large philanthropies but instead included a major fund that paid countries to keep forests standing.

Speaking ahead of the United Nations climate summit, the Brazilian president told reporters: “I don’t want to say the word donation any longer.

The Cop30 summit begins later this week in Belem, a Brazilian city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.

He said: “Someone gives us $50 million (£30m). It is nice, but that’s nothing.

“We need billions to deal with our problems, problems of people who are (living) there.”

In Belem, Lula is expected to launch an initiative named Tropical Forests Forever Fund, aiming to support more than 70 developing countries that commit to preservation.

So far, Colombia, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia and Malaysia have joined.

Germany, the United Arab Emirates, France, Norway and Britain are helping shape the mechanism and likely will be its first investors, which Lula hopes will help boost interest from the private sector.

The official Cop30 website describes the initiative as a “permanent trust fund” that would generate about $4 (£3) from the private sector for every $1 contributed.

Lula also defended his government’s recent decision to approve exploratory drilling by state-run oil-giant Petrobras in an oil and gas rich area near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Activists and experts have said that the project risks leaks that could be carried widely by tides and imperil the sensitive environment.

“If I was a fake and lying leader, I would wait for Cop to be finished (to give approval),” Lula said.

“But if I did that, I would be a small man before the importance of this,” he said.