August 27, 2019

G7 pledges aid for the Amazon. What is next?

topic:	Global Warming
located:	Brazil, France
editor:	Magdalena Rojo

Before signing the trade deal between the European Union and the countries of Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay), the French President Emmanuel Macron warned his partners that his Brazilian counterpart does not respect international deals to protect the environment. Even though the deal still needs to be officially approved by France and other countries, it was already agreed on. Environmental commitments, as usual, did not become a priority over economic interests.

Less than two months after the trade deal was signed, Macron announced a $22m aid to help Brazil and other countries in South America fight the fires in the Amazon rainforest. The decision was made at the G7 summit that took place in Biarritz, France, during the last weekend of August.

The biggest rainforest in the world has been burning for the last three weeks. There have been 85 percent more fires in 2019 compared to the same period last year. Many environmentalists blame Jair Bolsonaro and his rhetoric of favouring business interests to the environmental protection of the current situation.

Bolsonaro stated that the burning is normal during the dry period of the year and even blamed NGOs, without proof, for setting up fires to discredit him. However, many of the fires are due to the activity of farmers who are deforesting land using slash-and-burn methods to set up their ranches. Illegal logging and mining in the Amazon is another reason the rainforest is burning, also encouraged by Bolsonaro.

The Brazilian President's reaction to the help offered by the G7 alliance was that Brazil was treated "as if we were a colony or no man's land" and the government refuses to accept the aid. Paradoxically, Jair Bolsonaro has been the one behaving like a white man colonizing the areas of indigenous people in the Amazon. Otherwise they would not have a reason to march for the Amazon's protection all around the country.

The responsibility for the environment is a collective one. As much as Bolsonaro is trying to persuade the world that the Amazon belongs to Brazil, and thus him only, it is not true. Indigenous people who inhabit the rainforest across other South American countries are showing us that the fight for the protection of the environment needs to be fought together; we all need to participate.

Participation can have different layers. It is positive to see that some world leaders acknowledge common responsibility and act accordingly. However, considering how serious the situation is – Mr Macron called the fires in the Amazon a global emergency – there is more powerful nations can do: be coherent in their policies. In the time of this climate crisis, environmental protection has to become a priority, with all new policies and any kind of deals demanding to be in tune with this priority. We would not need to extinguish the fire if that was the case.