“Convened by Pope Francis through the general secretary of the Episcopal Synod, cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, we met in Puerto Maldonado on January 19^th and 20^th“. This has been written in a release by the president of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (Repam), card. Claudio Hummes, on behalf of the delegated bishops of eight countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. The cardinal goes on: “It was the first preparatory visit in the run-up to the Amazonian Synod, as announced by Pope Francis in his speech to the native peoples of Amazonia”. Card. Hummes goes on: “We feel honoured to have acted as advisors at this session, during which we could voice the concerns of the populations we take care of and the challenges of our actual pastoral contexts. In addition, we value the sign that the formal process of the Synod has started on Amazonian land. The preparatory documents will soon begin to be drawn up, confident that the bishops of the Amazonian region and their population will keep being consulted”.