[Concern over the environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro, which have prioritized the interests of industries that want greater access to protected lands, has also put in jeopardy a trade agreement the European Union and a handful of South American nations struck in June, following decades of negotiations.]
By
Manuela Andreoni, Letícia Casado and Ernesto Londoño
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Brazil’s
diplomatic missions have been targeted with protests because of its shifting
reputation
on the environment. Credit Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
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RIO
DE JANEIRO — As dozens of
fires scorched large swaths of the Amazon, the Brazilian government on Thursday
struggled to contain growing global outrage over its environmental policies,
which have paved the way for runaway deforestation of the world’s largest rain
forest.
The fires, many intentionally set, are
spreading as Germany and Norway appear to be on the brink of shutting down a
$1.2 billion conservation initiative for the Amazon.
Concern over the environmental policies of
President Jair Bolsonaro, which have prioritized the interests of industries
that want greater access to protected lands, has also put in jeopardy a trade
agreement the European Union and a handful of South American nations struck in
June, following decades of negotiations.
“The ongoing forest fires in Brazil are
deeply worrying,” the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday.
“Forests are our lungs and life support systems.”
Photos of the fires have been shared by NASA,
politicians and celebrities this week, setting off a call on social media to
#PrayForAmazon.
The actor Leonardo DiCaprio called on his
nearly 34 million Instagram followers to become more environmentally conscious
in a post warning that “the lungs of the Earth are in flames.”
The Bolsonaro administration has reacted with
indignation to the outrage, claiming without presenting any evidence that
nongovernmental organizations could have started the fires to undermine the
far-right president.
In the northern state of Rondônia, which has
been among the most affected by the fires, indigenous leaders described
watching wild animals dashing out of areas of the forest as the flames
approached.
“We saw wild pigs, tapirs, armadillos,
anteaters, snakes in larger numbers than we are used to,” said Adriano
Karipuna, a leader in the Karipuna indigenous community, whose territory has
been affected by fires. “We saw the forest covered in smoke, and the sky
darkened. Our eyes became red due to the smoke.”
Mr. Karipuna said loggers are striding into
protected areas, emboldened by Mr. Bolsonaro’s views that the legal protections
granted to indigenous lands are an unreasonable impediment to profiting from
the Amazon’s resources.
“He empowered them, he told them to invade,”
Mr. Karipuna said in a phone interview.
Senior government officials in Brazil took
aim on Thursday at international news coverage and criticism from Western
governments, calling their characterization of the fires intentionally
misleading.
“There’s a reason why Brazil has the best
environmental credentials and the best preserved forests in the word: We know
how to protect and take care of what is ours,” Filipe Martins, a foreign policy
adviser to Mr. Bolsonaro wrote in a series of messages on Twitter. “If you are
wondering who is going to save the Amazon, here’s a very straightforward answer
for you: It’s not the empty, hysterical and misleading rhetoric of the
mainstream media, transnational bureaucrats and NGOs.”
Brazil has strict environmental laws and
regulations, but they are often violated with impunity. The vast majority of
fines for breaking environmental laws go unpaid with little or no consequences.
Forest fires are common in Brazil during this
time of the year, which tends to be cooler and drier. But the number now raging
in the Amazon is unusually high.
Data released by Brazil’s National Institute
for Space Research shows that from January to July, fires had consumed 4.6
million acres of the Brazilian Amazon, a 62 percent increase compared to last
year.
Joênia Wapichana, a federal lawmaker from the
northern state of Roraima, was among a group of members of Congress who called
on Thursday for the impeachment of Mr. Bolsonaro’s environment minister,
Ricardo Salles.
“The government has a duty to come up with an
emergency plan for the Amazon,” said Ms. Wapichana, the first indigenous woman
elected to Congress. “There is no response from the government. The government
is acting in a defensive and desperate manner.”
In recent months, as the Bolsonaro
administration has questioned the usefulness of the Amazon Fund bankrolled by
German and Norwegian taxpayers, leaders in those countries have come to
consider abandoning it altogether.
The fund was started in 2008, when Brazil was
making strides in curbing deforestation through an ambitious set of policies
that included aggressive law enforcement and conservation efforts.
“The policies of the Brazilian government on
the Amazon region call into question whether they are still pursuing the goal
of consistently reducing deforestation rates,” Germany’s Foreign Ministry said
in a statement this month. “We need certainty on that account before we can
continue project cooperation.”
The trade deal between the European Union and
Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay still needs to be ratified by the
European Parliament, and it is meeting resistance from environmental activists
who are pressing lawmakers on the issue.
President Emmanuel Macron of France posted a
tweet on Thursday calling the fires “an international crisis” and called for
the “emergency” to be discussed at this weekend’s Group of 7 summit meeting he
is hosting.
Brazil’s shifting reputation on the
environment has made its diplomatic missions abroad targets of protests by
militant conservation groups.
Last week the police in London arrested six
activists from the Extinction Rebellion group who glued themselves to the
windows of the Brazilian Embassy.
“We need to do what we can to protect what
Bolsonaro’s government is trying to destroy,” Lazer Sorrë, 18, a high school
student who took part in the protest in London, said in a statement the group
released.
Waldez Góes, the governor of the northern
state of Amapá, is among a group of governors who are calling on European
leaders to continue bankrolling conservation initiatives, bypassing the federal
government. Mr. Góes said he feared that continued degradation of the Amazon
would spark a boycott of Brazilian products.
“We live in a country that produces food,” he
said in an interview. “The price could be very high for producers and for the
nation.”
Jerônimo Goergen, a federal lawmaker from the
so-called ruralist caucus, which champions industries seeking broader access to
the Amazon, said he was deeply worried about Brazil’s reputation abroad as its
approach to the environment has come under harsh scrutiny.
“This creates a terrible image for Brazil,”
he said. “The agricultural sector stands to suffer the most based on the way
this debate is being framed.”
Manuela Andreoni reported from Rio de
Janeiro, Leticia Casado reported from Brasília and Ernesto Londoño reported
from New York. Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting from Brussels and
Palko Karasz from London.
