Reading From A Prepared Text, Bolsonaro Expresses His "Profound Love" For Amazon Forests
Last edited Tue Aug 27, 2019, 05:38 PM - Edit history (1)
Sound familiar?
Fire map showing active fires for the week starting Aug. 13, 2019, in the Brazilian Amazon using VIIRS and MODIS satellite data. Image courtesy of Global Forest Watch (GFW).
On Friday night, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro appeared on national television, expressing his “profound love” for Amazônia and saying that his government had “zero tolerance” for environmental crimes. He also pledged to send in the armed forces to end illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest. Bolsonaro, who, unusually for him, read from a prepared text, timed his address to influence world leaders, gathering at that moment in the French resort of Biarritz ahead of the G7 summit. Some, including French President Emmanuel Macron, called for an international response to force Brazil into decisive action to protect the rainforest. The Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said on Friday that the EU should rethink whether to ratify the huge trade deal just concluded with the South American free trade area, Mercosur, saying that Bolsonaro’s attempt to blame the fires on NGOs and environmental groups was “Orwellian.”
The possibility that the trade deal, which took 20-years to negotiate, will be wrecked and that Brazil could also face a trade boycott, has greatly alarmed some in the Brazilian agribusiness sector, including former agriculture minister, Blairo Maggi, who has called for the government to change policies, warning that Brazil’s agricultural exports are “replaceable” on the world market.
Bolsonaro said that “forest fires, unfortunately, happen each year” and that the number of fires was “within the average of the last 15 years,” a figure provided by NASA. But, as analysts pointed out, this figure, though true, is misleading. In 2004 and 2005 — years when Amazon deforestation was peaking — there was also an alarming rise in annual fires, which topped 70,000. After that, thanks to impressive efforts by authorities, the number of fires generally fell, to 24,000 in 2017 and under 16,000 in 2018.
EDIT
Six of the nine state governors in Amazonia are Bolsonaro backers, and have endorsed his policies; some have rejected the rule of law regarding the environment. In late May, Gladson Cameli, Acre’s governor, openly encouraged ruralists not to pay fines resulting from environmental crimes for which they’d been found guilty. “If IMAC [the Institute of the Environment in Acre] fines someone, tell me,” he said “And don’t pay any fine, because I’m in charge now.”
EDIT
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/bolsonaro-expresses-love-for-amazon-as-it-burns-offers-no-policy-shift/