It is time to impose an embargo on Brazil
24. 8. 2019
/
Fabiano Golgo
čas čtení
4 minuty
The
lungs of our planet are on fire. If the Amazon suffers, the world
suffers. The Amazon is essential to all beings on Earth, so it should
not have its fate decided by eventual predatory governments, as the one
currently in charge in Brazil.
Last week, the
largest city of Brazil, São Paulo, became totally dark at 3 pm. This
caused quite a furor, with lots of evangelical Christians running to
their churches, believing the Apocalypse had arrived. The darkness was
being caused by an immense wall of smoke that came from the fires in the
Amazon. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change
Service, the fires have led to a clear spike in carbon monoxide
emissions as well as planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, posing a
threat to human health and aggravating global warming.
![](/img.php?id=-14246&size=1000&mc=ffffff&mg=0&cp=)
Brazil's
National Institute for Space Research published that so far this year,
there have been 72,843 fires in the country, an 80 percent increase
compared to this same time period in 2018. Because of releasing this
data, the director of the institute was fired by President Bolsonaro,
who also forbid the public release of any data concerning the
environment, unless he approves it. He has slashed the environmental
enforcement agency's budget, which is now unable to enforce anything
because it does not have the personnel or even means of transportation
to go to the affected areas. The lack of punishment to wrongdoers
encouraged ranchers and loggers to burn down vasts amounts of land with
no fear of getting in trouble with the law. Bolsonaro ran his
presidential campaign promising to privatize the magnificent rainforest
and hand it over to the agriculture and mining sectors.
The
Brazilian President did not bow to French President Emanuel Macron's,
chancellor Angela Merkel's and Canadian premier Justin Trudeau's
threats, responding to them in a televised speech Friday night (through a
mandatory broadcast shown in every single radio and TV station of
Brazil), telling the foreign leaders that the Amazon belongs to Brazil
and that they should take care of their own local environmental issues.
“Our
house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest — the lungs which
produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen — is on fire,” Macron tweeted.
Bolsonaro fired back on Twitter: “I regret that Macron seeks to make
personal political gains in an internal matter for Brazil and other
Amazonian countries. The sensationalist tone he used does nothing to
solve the problem.”
Earlier this month,
Norway and Germany suspended funding for projects to curb deforestation
in Brazil after becoming alarmed by changes to the way projects were
selected under Bolsonaro. The Brazilian army captain turned President
made clear in this pronouncement that he intends to explore all the
riches and wealth available in the Amazon, that the gold, silver,
precious stones, minerals, oil, gas and whatever may lie under the
forest will be used to enrich Brazil.
![](/img.php?id=-14245&size=1000&mc=ffffff&mg=0&cp=)
Bolsonaro
has plans to end all Native Indian reservations and to force Native
Indians to adapt to urban life. He has openly said many times that every
Indian would love to have a car, a TV, a mobile phone. Most Brazilians
laugh and agree. The current blazes have formed “ring of fire” around
indigenous territories, including the lands of the Kayapó and some 16
tribes that live in the Xingu Indigenous Park. Many believe Bolsonaro is
thus promoting a genocide. There are only 300 tribes and around 900
thousand Native Indians left.
So,
Bolsonaro is basically destroying the Amazon and its original
inhabitants. However, the Amazon should not be a matter just for Brazil
and Brazilians. The Amazon is a global patrimony. It belongs to all of
us. It is essential to our survival. To allow some "caudillo" (typical
Latin American type of macho-populist) to decide what is done with it is
non-sense. Brazil has shown for decades that it is not capable of
keeping the Amazon from being destroyed. It is time to impose an embargo
on Brazil.
It is a matter of survival that
world powers find a way to interfere in Brazil and turn the
administration of the preservation of the Amazon to an international
holding of responsible countries. Bolsonaro says Brazil lacks resources
to fight Amazon fires, so the country should allow other countries to
take care of the problem.
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