The Fires of the Brazilian Amazon as a Result of Government Anti-Environmental Policies
The world’s largest Amazon Rainforest rainforest has been burning for almost 20 days. The situation has created shock and indignation for people around the world, but the real problem has been slowly increasing the fires for the past 30 years due to a long and fast-moving deforestation phenomenon.
Although there are still no figures for the magnitude of the damage, NASA’s Aqua satellite indicates that there are 63,000 active heat points in the Amazon, particularly in the most deforested municipalities.
Since President Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019, the discourse has been explicitly oriented towards a radical U-turn in environmental policy. The direction taken promotes the exploitation of the rainforest, the legalization of mining in indigenous reserves and the reduction of controls in protected areas.
An alarming report published by the Space Research Institute of Brazil (INPE) has revealed that deforestation in the country’s forests climbed 80 percent in June compared to the same date last year with more than 7,536 square km devastated since August 2018. More than 3,000 km² were destroyed since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, an area almost equivalent to Luxemburg and Andorra together.
The Greenpeace report Amazon Cattle Footprint, indicates that Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of coffee, sugar, soybeans, and beef. Cattle occupy more than 60 percent of the deforested areas. The number of cattle in the Brazilian Amazon is growing extremely quickly: the bovine herd has more than doubled, going from 26.6 million to 64 million in the past 10 years. Such growth intensifies the destruction of the Amazon forest, which is being replaced by new pasture areas.
It is clear that the Brazilian government’s actions and omissions are violating the “duty to protect” (doctrine recognized by all member states of the United Nations). As a result, the international community and its environmental organs have the duty to act and initiate a humanitarian intervention, economic sanctions or any other measures available to defend the rainforest from a government that is unwilling to protect such a vital ecosystem.
Meanwhile, what we have now is a setback in environmental management, clearing of those policies and the loss of the most important ecosystem in the planet. Even though the Brazilian Amazon is as important as ever to cope with the climate crisis, the fires and devastation are just the beginning. So long as Bolsonaro’s government remains in power and the international community remains unresponsive to assume its role in the solution, the impact will be much worse
In words of Marcio Astrini, Greenpeace Public Policy Coordinator: “The numbers of the destruction, that were already high and unacceptable, got even worse. Most of the answers that explain this increase are political. It’s from the center of the Brazilian power that comes the constant stimulus to the environmental crime in the Amazon”.
According to professor Germán Poveda from National University in Medellin, Colombia the affirmation made by Bolsonaro that “the Amazon belongs to Brazil”, is not accurate. The Amazon rainforest belongs to nine countries, and what happens to the Amazon in Brazil affects the entire continent and the world. In his studies about the “Role of the Amazon in the Global and Continental Climate: impacts of Climate change and deforestation” professor Poveda shows how water vapor that evaporates in the Amazon forest and travels to the Andes mountain range and goes back down the Amazonian foothills to the La Plata river among others, in southern America (Graph1). Glaciers also feed on Amazonian waters that are already disappearing due to the warming of the atmosphere, and if you remove another source of moisture, defrosting is accelerated. If deforestation continues, the water cycle will be completely altered. Cities like Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and even Bogotá would suffer from water shortages. Further, not only does the flow down the river decrease but the amount of sediment with which the Andean rivers feed the Amazonian rivers would be reduced too -The same sediments that make the incredible biodiversity of the Amazon possible.
Now the big questions arise: How far would Governments and the international organizations go to prevent and act against this irreversible environmental damage? Is assistance made by Norway enough to protect the Amazon? Is the whole world willing to pay for the ecosystem services the Amazon provide?
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