Brazil And The Fires In The Amazon: What Is Happening Is, In Fact, Not Really Happening

Also, the Ministry of the Environment is doing its part. “Despite budgetary difficulties, an infrastructure problem, and a series of limitations passed from administration to administration, we are leveraging all of our administrative skills to bring together, for example, all of Prevfogo’s (the federal organisation to combat fires and unauthorised burn-offs) teams.” Those resources are there at the state governments’ disposal, and monitoring is ongoing. All of the necessary conservation measures will continue to take place, so absolutely nothing is being overlooked.”

Nothing is being overlooked.

So, mind your own business! Brazil wants Norway – a principal donor to the Amazon Fund – to take the money invested to combat deforestation in Brazil and give it to German chancellor Angela Merkel for reforestation in Germany. Berlin, who also suspended investment in the preservation of our rainforest, can save their money. The president has said it: “Brazil doesn’t need it.”.

There’s a problem with that narrative – while the government is pointing fingers, jumping to conclusions, and rejecting help, the Amazon rainforest keeps burning. Fires have shattered all records of the past seven years. According to INPE, there were 72,843 fires between January of this year and last Monday (August 19th). That is an 83 percent increase over the number recorded last year.

The journal Folha do Progresso stated that farmers in the state of Pará in northern Brazil said that the only way to show the president their willingness to work was by clearing the land, so they decided to have a “fire day”.

Bolsonaro claims he is being accused of being Nero, the emperor who set fire to Rome.

While the government alleges it is the drought season which is conducive to fires, INPE states the blazes in question are not from natural causes. “Drought conditions are favourable to the spread of fire, but when the fires start, it is by human action, whether intentional or through carelessness,” explained researcher Alberto Setzer, coordinator of the INPE group that monitors fires.

This year, deforestation in the Amazon affected 5 thousand km² of forest. That is an increase of 15 percent over the last 12 months compared to the same period last year, according to Imazon, a non-profit organisation dedicated to conserving the Amazon rainforest, whose methodology is different from INPE’s. In July alone, the area affected by deforestation was 1,287 km² – an increase of 66 percent compared to July of last year.

To sum it up, the door to deforestation was opened, but, in the end, loosening oversight is what is fanning the flames of the blazes. According to the Brazilian Climate Observatory, data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act shows that there was a 58 percent decrease in oversight operations by IBAMA (the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment’s administrative arm) through April of this year, in comparison to the same period last year. If looking at the Amazon alone, that decrease was 70 percent.

Furthermore, a study conducted by Folha de Sao Paulo shows that between January and June of this year, fines for deforestation fell 23 percent compared to the same period in 2018.

And all of this is what is happening, while the president dodges responsibility and alleges “environmental psychosis.”