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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Deforestation |
|---|---|
| located: | Brazil, USA |
| editor: | Ellen Nemitz |
After more than two years of “running the cattle herd” to weaken environment protection laws - to quote Brazilian Environmental Minister Ricardo Salles - President Jair Bolsonaro and his minister have engaged in a series of conversations with the US government to supposedly achieve a common goal: reduce the Amazon’s deforestation rates.
The plea is ambitious: Brazil is asking for a billion-dollar international aid deal, which the US would pay upfront, to reduce Amazon clearance by 30 to 40 percent and reach a net-zero economy by 2050.
According to Reuters, a third of the money would fund surveillance teams and the remaining sum would be invested in sustainable economic development in the region. However, the possible deal is alarming activists, specialists and communities throughout the country, who claim Brazil’s intentions behind the deal are dishonest.
The local office of Greenpeace used social media to spread real data about Brazil’s climate goals. Calling the Amazon Plan 2021/2022 “empty and shameful,” the NGO says: “After two years without targets to protect the Amazon, the Brazilian government presents a plan with a proposal to deforest 16% more than when it took office.” This is because the target - to restore the average deforestation rate of the period between 2016 and 2020 - is higher than the 2018 rate, (the last year before Bolsonaro’s administration).
The problems of the document go beyond that, however, according to Greenpeace. By suggesting land regulation in areas with environmental crime evidence, illegally grabbed land might end up being legalised, which could potentially boost deforestation.
"Another controversial and little detailed point is the attribution to the Ministry of Mines and Energy the responsibility for stimulating the bioeconomy in the region, since bioeconomics is a vision of economic development related to the valuing of peoples and nature's knowledge, and should not be related to mining activity, which, on the contrary, produces several negative environmental and social impacts in the region,” Greenpeace further notes.
Considering all those inconsistencies of the plan presented by the government, civil society is asking the Biden administration to listen to the people before signing any deal with Bolsonaro. Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (Apib, in Portuguese) launched a video, in English, in which they warn Biden not to trust Bolsonaro or sign any "secret climate deal” with him.
“Do not let this man negotiate the future of Amazon,” the video’s message reads, mentioning Bolsonaro’s adverse attitude towards the environment, the indigenous peoples, democracy and public health. At the end, Biden is asked about which side he is on: #AmazonOrBolsonaro. A number of US Senators have also warned Biden about the Brazilian president's lack of credibility.
Brazil’s environmental policies concerning the Paris Agreement are also under scrutiny. Fridays for Future Brazil and the NGO Engajamundo, both led by youth climate activists, blamed the Brazilian government - specifically the environment minister, Ricardo Salles, and former foreign affairs minister, Ernesto Araújo - for the annulation of the new Paris Agreement goals, set in December 2020. According to the group, which is supported by several former environmental ministers, the Bolsonaro administration has devised a trick to possibly increase emissions by 2030.
On the eve of the US Earth Day summit, it is urgent that the world gather to adequately fight all forest destruction and, thus, help limit temperature rise, since standing forests keep carbon out of the atmosphere, aside from other benefits to biodiversity. All such efforts must rely on real intentions, however, and not on tricks designed to maximise profits, media attention or, at last, secure Bolsonaro’s victory in next year’s election in Brazil.
Image: Ricardo Funari.
