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Why Brazil has refused G7 funds to tackle Amazon wildfires

Brazil has witnessed a dramatic 85 per cent rise in wildfires in the Amazon rainforest this year.

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In an expected move, Brazilian officials have refused to accept G7’s $22 million assistance to deal with wildfires raging the Amazon for the past several weeks. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has accused France (who hosted this year’s G7) of treating Brazil like a “colony”.

What the Brazilian government say

Bolsonaro’s Chief of Staff Onyx Lorenzoni has told Globo: “Thanks, but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe.”

“(Emanuel) Macron cannot even avoid a predictable fire in a church that is part of the world’s heritage, and he wants to give us lessons for our country?” added Lorenzoni, taking a dig at Macron’s inability to bring down the fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral earlier this year.

Dealing with the wildfires was a core part of this year’s G7 agenda. Ironically, it was also arguably the only issue on which the member-states could reach a consensus. Thus, Brazil’s refusal to accept the funds comes as a massive blow to G7.

In essence, an ambitious Macron – who is anchoring this year’s G7 – seems to have met with a populist-nationalist Bolsonaro administration. As is the case with such regimes, the assistance offer made by G7 was seen as an encroachment on “Brazilian sovereignty”.

How bad is the situation

While wildfires are a common phenomenon in Brazil’s Amazon rainforests, according to reports by country’s space agency Inpe, wildfires have witnessed a dramatic increase of 85 per cent this year.

Referred to as the “earth’s lungs”, the Amazon rainforests are the world’s largest carbon sink. These rainforests absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and release oxygen – thus, slowing down the pace of global warming.

In addition, they house about 15 per cent of the world’s flora and fauna species.


Also read: Many reasons to be appalled by Amazon fires but depleting oxygen supply not one of them


Colonisation of the Amazon

Over the past three decades – driven by rampant progress in mining, farming and ranching – the rainforests have undergone rapid deforestation. A confluence of contentious Brazilian politics and hopes of economic prosperity have also driven the Amazon rainforests in a ‘wild’ direction.

A comprehensive report by The Globe and Mail, paints a grim picture on the state of the Amazon. For this report, their correspondent Stephanie Nolen, travelled for 2,000 kilometres on the highway BR-163 which cuts through the entire length of the Amazon rainforests.

Brazil’s military-bureaucratic dictatorship looked at the massive Amazon forests as a possible land which could be captured by foreign powers.

“So the military rulers devised a policy, ocupar para não entregar – occupy so we don’t lose it – that aimed to move more people into the forest, fast,” notes The Globe and Mail.

From here on, started the process of colonisation of the Amazon forests by the Brazilian state.

Colonisation, deforestation of Amazon

In 1988, a new Brazilian constitution was put into place which gave adequate protection to the rainforests. But about a decade later began a massive Amazon-centric economic boom.

Several ranches, industrialised farms, and mining funded Brazil’s economic take-off, but at the cost of severe deforestation.

Given a rapidly shrinking forest cover, and mounting global pressure to act, the then Brazilian President Lula da Silva, asked his environment minister to a put appropriate policies in place.

His environment minister Marina Silva drew a “transformative plan to change the way Brazil managed its forests”. And the plan was based on observation through comprehensive satellite imagery and robust police enforcement.

Silva’s plan was a massive success, and Brazil’s rate of deforestation rapidly went down.

Dilma Rouseff, Silva’s protégée became the president after Silva. And the environmental progress continued under her regime as well.

By 2016 – engulfed in a massive corruption scandal – Rousseff was impeached. She was replaced by Vice President Michel Temer. According to the Globe and Mail report, Temer was “a long-time patron of rich landowners, soy farmers and ranchers.”

Soon after his appointment, Temer was also accused in a corruption scandal and he “turned to those ruralistas to ensure his survival, by proposing to ease restrictions on everything from mining to ranching in protected forest.”

“All of the gains we had in the past 30 years, creating environmental safeguards, laws that organise land occupation – are being exchanged with this rural elite, they’re the bargaining chip to keep Temer as president,” Ane Alencar, a Brazilian scientist toldThe Globe and Mail.

A few years later, in 2019, the right-wing Bolsonaro came to power and he has since continued with the policies of Temer-regime. When Bolsonaro was met with massive protests regarding the Amazon wildfires, he claimed that NGOs were responsible for them.

In Other News: 

Highway of riches, road to ruin: Inside the Amazon’s deforestation crisis, The Globe and Mail

‘Football pitch’ of Amazon forest lost every minute, BBC News

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