When the presidents of South America's Amazonian nations met in Colombia's jungle town of Leticia two years ago to discuss how to better protect the world's largest rainforest, they signed a landmark deal that raised hopes deforestation would decline.

The Leticia Pact aimed to drive sustainable forest use and reforestation, restore degraded land, improve information sharing and the use of satellite data to monitor deforestation and wildfires, and empower women and indigenous groups.

But since seven heads of state inked the plan, as indigenous leaders looked on, its pledges have remained largely unfulfilled, with scant evidence of up-and-running forest protection and restoration efforts as a direct result of the pact, critics said.