Monday, August 26, 2019
The Amazon is burning: What you need to know
Where are the fires? Why is
the Amazon important? Six things to know about the fires burning in the 'lungs
of Earth'.
by David Child
7 hours ago
The Amazon is being shrouded
in plumes of smoke as fires rage across parts of the rainforest,
imperilling the so-called "lungs of the planet" and the vast array of
life to which it is home.
Visible from outer space, the
smoke billows have prompted international alarm, calls for action and much
finger-pointing over what, or who, is responsible for the burning.
Brazilian President Jair
Bolsonaro, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny for his
controversial stewardship of Brazil's
majority share of the rainforest.
Al Jazeera answers some of the
major questions being asked about the crisis in the Amazon, one of Earth's
greatest natural treasures.
Where are the fires?
The fires are burning across a
range of states in Brazil's section of the Amazon rainforest.
Northerly Roraima down through
Amazonas, Acre, Rondonia and Mato Grosso do Sul have all been badly affected.
Brazil's National Institute
for Space Research (INPE) spotted more than 9,500 new forest fires in
Brazil since August 15 alone, while atmospheric monitoring agencies have
tracked smoke from the Amazon region drifting thousands of kilometres across
the Latin American giant to the Atlantic coast and Sao Paulo, briefly turning daytime in Brazil's biggest city to night on
Monday.
From the other side of Earth,
here’s the latest on the Amazonia fires
Produced by @CopernicusEU’s atmosphere monitoring service, it shows the smoke reaching the Atlantic coast and São Paulo
DATA HERE
http://bit.ly/2TLbM2E
Produced by @CopernicusEU’s atmosphere monitoring service, it shows the smoke reaching the Atlantic coast and São Paulo
DATA HERE
Amazonas, Brazil's largest
state, declared a state of emergency on August 9 while Acre has been
on environmental alert since August 16 due to the fires.
Several other countries in the
Amazon region, including Bolivia and Peru, which both
border Brazil, have also seen a surge in fires this year, according to
INPE data.
How many?
The INPE recorded nearly
73,000 fires in Brazil between January and August this year - the highest
since INPE records began in 2013 and a more than 80 percent bump on the figure
for the same period last year. Most of them were in the Amazon.
Meanwhile, as of August 16, a
NASA analysis suggested that "total fire activity
across the Amazon basin has been close to the average in comparison to the past
15 years". NASA noted that the Amazon spreads across several countries.
It also added, "though
activity appears to be above average in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia, it
has so far appeared below average in Mato Grosso and Para".
What's causing them?
Fires are a regular and
natural occurrence in the Amazon at this time of year, during the dry season.
But environmentalists
and non-governmental organisations have attributed the record number
of fires to farmers setting the forest alight to clear land for pasture and to
loggers razing the forest for its wood, with INPE itself ruling
out natural phenomena being responsible for the surge.
Critics say far-right
President Bolsonaro's weakening of
Brazil's environmental agency, IBAMA, and push to open up the Amazon region for
more farming and mining has emboldened such actors and created a climate of
impunity for those felling the forest illegally.
Recent evidence appears to
bear that out with preliminary data showing deforestation
in the Brazilian Amazon is skyrocketing under Bolsonaro's watch.
The rate of forest destruction
soared more than 278 percent in July compared with the same month a year
ago, according to research by the Amazon Environmental
Research Institute. Previously, INPE pegged the rate of deforestation in
June at 88 percent higher than during the corresponding month in 2018.
"These statistics speak
to who is in power and what he (Bolsonaro) is doing to undermine environmental
protection ... and open the floodgates to illegal and destructive
behaviour," said Christian Poirier, Brazil programme director for NGO
Amazon Watch.
Bolsonaro's government,
meanwhile, has offered a range of explanations for the blazes - including
increased drought and the president himself making unfounded claims that NGOs
had started the fires in an attempt to undermine his administration after it
slashed their funding.
On Friday, Bolsonaro said he
had authorised the use of troops to help contain the blazes and stop illegal
deforestation, but he also blamed the weather for the fires.
Brazilian military planes
began dumping water on fires in Rondonia over the weekend, but the
government had yet to provide any operational details for other states.
Why does the Amazon matter?
The Amazon is the largest
tropical forest in the world, covering more than five million square kilometres
across nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana,
Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
It acts as an enormous carbon
sink, storing up to an estimated 100 years worth of carbon emissions produced
by humans, and is seen as vital to slowing the pace of global
warming.
"The Amazon is the most
significant climate stabiliser we have, it creates 20 percent of the air we
breathe and it also holds 20 percent of the fresh flowing water on the
planet," Poirier said.
Put simply, he added,
preserving the forest is of "critical importance" for both the region
it encompasses and the rest of the world.
But in the last
half-century alone, nearly 20 percent of the forest has disappeared.
Scientists have warned that if tree loss in the Amazon were to pass a
certain "tipping point", somewhere between 25 and 40 percent,
deforestation could start to feed on itself and lead to the demise of the
forest within a matter of decades.
"One of the cornerstones
of climatic stability on our planet is in peril and the consequences of this
are almost too large to fathom," Poirier said. "The future of
our civilisation depends on its integrity."
Who (and what) calls the
Amazon home?
The Amazon has been inhabited
by humans for at least 11,000 years and is home to more than 30 million people
- about two-thirds of whom live in cities carved out of the greenery.
Among those living in the
region are about one million indigenous people who are divided into some
400 tribes., according to
indigenous rights group Survival International.
Most live in villages, though
some remain nomadic, with each tribe possessing its distinct
language and culture, both of which are traditionally intimately
intertwined with the surrounding environment.
Jonathan Mazower, a spokesman
for Survival International, said the tribes were "dependent on their
forests for everything, and have managed and looked after them for
millennia".
"[But] many are seeing
their lands burned in front of their eyes, and with it their livelihood, source
of food, medicines, and their very homes," he added.
Poirier agreed, saying
the fires pose an "affront" to the "safety and integrity"
of their way of life.
"Indigenous people are on
the frontline of this struggle - the work they do to protect the forest is so
vital and their connection to the forest is so important to their
cultures," he added.
"The potential is here
for not just environmental devastation, but also cultural genocide."
In addition to the human
presence within the Amazon, the forest also houses 10 percent of all
known wildlife species, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF), with a "new" species of animal or plant discovered in the
rainforest every three days on average.
How has the world reacted?
The response to the fires is
predominantly with a chorus of concern and condemnation of Bolsonaro's
environmental stewardship.
French President Emmanuel
Macron and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar
said separately on Friday they would move to veto a landmark European
Union trade deal brokered with South American bloc Mercosur unless Brazil
takes action to protect the rainforest.
The pact requires the Latin American giant to abide by the
Paris climate accord, which Bolsonaro has threatened to leave, and also aims to
end illegal deforestation, including in the Brazilian Amazon.
Macron also called for the
fires to be front and centre of the agenda for this weekend's G7 summit,
branding the blazes an "international crisis".
"Our house is burning.
Literally. The Amazon rainforest - the lungs which produce 20 percent of our
planet's oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7
Summit, let's discuss this emergency first order in two days!" Macron
tweeted on Thursday.
Our house is burning.
Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20% of our
planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7
Summit, let's discuss this emergency first order in two days! #ActForTheAmazon
This was echoed by German
Chancellor Angela Merkel,
who said the Amazon fires posed an "acute emergency" and belonged on
the G7's agenda, despite Brazil not being a member of the group.
However, Macron's comments
earned a swift rebuke from Bolsonaro, who called the issue an "internal
matter" and said the French leader's suggestion evoked "a colonialist
mentality that is out of place in the 21st century".
The spat came after Norway and
Germany earlier this month halted millions of dollars of Amazon protection
subsidies to the Amazon Fund, accusing Brazil of turning its back on the fight
against deforestation.
Meanwhile, social media users
around the world have latched on to #PrayForAmazonia and #PrayForAmazon,
pushing the topic towards the top of Twitter's global trends earlier this week.
Public demonstrations also
took place in several major Brazilian cities over the weekend, mirroring
protests held elsewhere around the world.
"The outpouring of
concern, grief and anger is unprecedented - what this is creating is a lasting
impression for people that the Amazon is absolutely essential to our future and
we all have a responsibility to protect it, contrary to what Bolsonaro may
say," Poirier said.
"But we can't allow
ourselves to fall into despair, there's no other way, we have to act - we have
a responsibility to ourselves, to future generations and to other beings on
this planet, are of which are suffering today as a result of this
chaos."
Israel’s Ban on Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Backfires
August 26, 2019 • 4
Comments
Trump and Netanyahu thought
they were pulling a fast one on two U.S. congresswomen, but it has blown up in
their faces, as Marjorie Cohn explains.
During Congress’s August
recess, a group of 41 Democratic and 31 Republican congressmembers traveled to
Israel on a delegation sponsored by American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC). AIPAC subsidizes congressional trips to Israel in order to further the
“special relationship” between Israel and the United States.
Israel is the largest
recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is the chief
Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel’s
oppressive policies toward the Palestinians.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan
Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, had planned their own
“Delegation to Palestine,” scheduled to begin on August 17. Tlaib, who was born
in the U.S., planned to travel to the West Bank to visit her 90-year old
Palestinian grandmother, whom she hasn’t seen for a decade. But, aided and
abetted by Donald Trump, Israel withdrew permission for the trip unless Tlaib
agreed to remain silent about Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians. She
refused to abide by the gag order and the trip was cancelled.
Tlaib said in a statement, “Visiting my grandmother under these
oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother’s heart.
Silencing me with treatment to make me feel less-than is not what she wants for
me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands up against racism and
injustice.” She added, “Being silent and not condemning the human rights
violations of the Israeli government is a disservice to all who live there,
including my incredibly strong and loving grandmother.”
Omar, who expressed “strength and solidarity” with Tlaib in a
tweet, toldreporters, “[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s
decision to deny us entry might be unprecedented for members of Congress. But
it is the policy of his government when it comes to Palestinians. This is the
policy of his government when it comes to anyone who holds views that threaten
the occupation.” She tweeted, “We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in
hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us.”
Israel’s refusal to allow
members of the U.S. Congress entry into Israel-Palestine without muzzling them
backfired. It has garnered widespread criticism, even by AIPAC, and focused the national discourse on the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which Tlaib and Omar support.
Omar, a member of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “It is my belief that as legislators, we have an
obligation to see the reality there for ourselves. We have a responsibility to
conduct oversight over our government’s foreign policy and what happens with
the millions of dollars we send in aid.” She says the U.S. must ask Netanyahu’s government to “stop
the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land and ensure full rights for
Palestinians if we are to give them aid.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders said, “The idea that a member of the United States
Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of
billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage,” adding, “And if Israel
doesn’t want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to
get a firsthand look at what’s going on … maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully
decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel.”
Tlaib and Omar Planned to
Witness Occupation
Tlaib and Omar were scheduled
to meet with members of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and Palestinian and
leftist Israeli activists and nonprofits, as well as international human rights
organizations in Jerusalem and the West Bank. They were also set to confer with
members of Breaking the Silence, a group of former members of the Israel
Defense Forces who now actively oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.
Omar tweeted that the goal of the delegation “was to
witness firsthand what is happening on the ground in Palestine and hear from
stakeholders —our job as Members of Congress.”
The visit by Tlaib and Omar
“was to be something else” in contrast to the AIPAC delegation, James Zogby,
co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, wrote in the Forward. Tlaib and Omar
“weren’t going to focus on officials,” according to Zogby. “They were going to
expose the reality of Palestinian daily life under occupation.
They were going to visit the Wall that separates Palestinians from their lands.
They were going to refugee camps now cut off from US funding. They were going
to see how Hebron has been horridly deformed by a settler invasion and military
occupation.”
Israel had approved the
Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said, “Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the
great alliance between Israel and America,” Israel would not deny entry “to any
member of Congress.”
But Donald Trump reportedly
told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should bar
Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled the
trip, Trump tweeted, “It would show great weakness if Israel
allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish
people.”
The Israeli government agreed
to allow Tlaib to visit her grandmother, provided she agree in writing not to
discuss her support for BDS. But after emotional conversations with her family,
Tlaib refused to submit to the condition that she not discuss the Israeli
occupation.
Tlaib “was forced to make a
choice between her right to visit her grandmother and her right to political
speech against Israeli oppression,” Sandra Tamari wrote at In These Times. Tamari has been
barred from seeing her family in Palestine for more than 10 years because of
her advocacy for Palestinian freedom and justice. Tlaib “ultimately chose the
collective over the personal: She refused Israel’s demeaning conditions that
would have granted her a ‘humanitarian’ exception to enter Palestine, so long
as she refrained from advocating for a boycott of Israel during her visit,”
Tamari added.
What Is the BDS Movement?
In 2005, Palestinian civil
society — including 170 Palestinian unions, political parties, refugee
networks, women’s organizations, professional associations, popular resistance
committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies — issued a call for
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
BDS is a nonviolent movement
for social change in the tradition of boycotts of South Africa and the southern
United States. It is aimed at ending Israel’s illegal occupation. In 1967,
Israel took control of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan
Heights by military force. UN Security Council Resolution 242 describes “the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calls for the
“withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the [1967]
conflict.”
But Israel continues its
illegal occupation and exercises total control over the lives of Palestinians
in the occupied territories. Israel regulates the ingress and egress of the
people, as well as the borders, airspace, seashore and waters off the coast of
Gaza. Israel expels Palestinians from their homes and builds illegal Jewish
settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel’s 2014 massacre in Gaza
led to the deaths of 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, and the
wounding of 11,231 Palestinians. These actions likely constituted war
crimes, according to the UN Human Rights Council’s
independent, international commission of inquiry.
Former UN deputy high
commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri, said that human rights violations “fuel and shape the
conflict” in the occupied Palestinian territories and “[h]uman rights
violations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are both cause and
consequence of the military occupation and ongoing violence, in a bitter
cyclical process with wider implications for peace and security in the region.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, writing in the Tampa Bay Times, cited the 2010
Human Rights Watch report which “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules,
and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West
Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services,
development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions
on Palestinians.” Tutu wrote, “This, in my book, is apartheid. It is
untenable.”
The call for BDS describes
boycotts, divestment and sanctions as “non-violent punitive measures” that
should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending
its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier
wall; (2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens
of Israel to full equality; and (3) respecting, protecting and promoting the
rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as stipulated in United
Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.
What Are Boycotts, Divestment
and Sanctions?
Boycotts encompass the
withdrawal of support for Israel and Israeli and international companies which
are violating Palestinian human rights, including Israeli sporting, cultural
and academic institutions.
Divestment campaigns urge
churches, banks, local councils, pension funds and universities to withdraw
investments from all Israeli companies and international companies involved in
the violation of Palestinian rights.
Sanctions campaigns
pressure governments to hold Israel legally accountable by ending military
trade and free-trade agreements and expelling Israel from international fora.
The BDS movement has had a
major impact on Israel. BDS was a critical factor in the 46 percent reduction
in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014, according to the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development. Individuals and entities who have heeded the call for
divestment include George Soros, the Bill Gates Foundation, TIAA-CREF public
sector pension fund, Dutch pension giant PGGM and Norwegian bank Nordea.
Several churches, including
the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of
Christ and many Quaker meetings, have divested from companies the BDS movement
has targeted. The security services company G4S is planning to sell its
subsidiary in Israel because the Stop G4S campaign resulted in a loss of
millions of dollars in contracts. The withdrawal of French multinational
utility company Veolia from Israel led to billions of dollars in lost
contracts.
Tutu, who finds striking parallels
between apartheid South Africa and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians,
supports BDS. He has called on “people and organizations of conscience to
divest from … Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard,” which
profit “from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.”
Twenty-seven states have enacted legislation targeting
boycotts of Israel, but activists have successfully defeated anti-boycott laws
in several states. These bills are unconstitutional infringements on protected First Amendment activity.
In banning Tlaib and Omar,
Israel relied on its 2017 law prohibiting entry to any non-Israeli citizen
who “has knowingly published a public call to engage in a boycott” against
Israel “or has made a commitment to participate in such a boycott.”
And the United States’
overwhelming support for Israel is reflected in a resolution the House of
Representatives adopted on July 23. H. Res. 246, which passed easily on a 398-17 vote, opposes
the BDS movement. Tlaib and Omar voted against the resolution.
Questioning U.S. Aid to Israel
Interestingly, although the
Republicans on the AIPAC trip tweeted vociferously about their visit, there was
near silence on Twitter from the Democratic members of the delegation, although
the group had given Netanyahu a standing ovation. “The absence of chatter from
the Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has
about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel,” Philip Weiss and
Michael Arria wrote at Mondoweiss. “A recent survey shows that
a majority of Democrats support sanctions against Israel
over settlements, even as the House votes overwhelmingly to condemn the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.”
The outrageous exclusion of
members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused unprecedented attention
on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to pressure
congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the
United States provides to Israel.
CEOs Say They Will Stop Maximizing Shareholder Value, Be Better If They Stopped Maximizing CEO Compensation
Dean Baker
The Washington Post had a
major front-page article announcing in the headline "Group of top
CEOs says maximizing shareholder profits no longer can be the primary goal of
corporations." The piece refers to a statement by the Business Roundtable,
a group comprising many of the country's largest companies, which argues for an
alleged shift in direction.
The problem with the statement
and the piece is that that there is little evidence companies have been
maximizing shareholder profits in the last two decades. The average real return to shareholders since December of
1997 is 4.8 percent. This compares to a longer-term average of more than 7.0
percent. (I went back to 1997 instead of taking the more natural 20-year
average to avoid distortions created by the stock bubble. The twenty-year
return has been just 3.6 percent.) These relatively low returns are especially
striking since corporations have gotten so much assistance from government tax
cuts over this period.
Rather than maximizing
shareholder returns, it seems more plausible that CEOs have been maximizing CEO pay, which has risen 940 percent since 1978.
Excessive CEO pay, which comes at the expense of the corporation, is far more
pernicious than returns to shareholders. While shareholders include
middle-class people with 401(k)s and pension funds, every dollar that goes to
CEOs goes to someone in the 0.01 percent of the income distribution.
More importantly, excessive
CEO pay distorts pay structures in the economy as a whole. If the CEO is
earning $15 million, the rest of the top five corporate executives likely earn
close to $10 million and even the third tier likely earn well over $1 million.
This affects pay structures elsewhere. Presidents at universities and large
non-profits now routinely make over $1 million a year and government cabinet
secretaries whine about the sacrifice of public service where they make
$211,000 a year.
It would be much better if our
top CEOs started bringing their pay down to earth than change a focus that they
don't in any obvious way now have.
Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest
democraciaAbierta has seen a
PowerPoint presentation that shows that Bolsonaro’s government intends to use
hate speech to isolate minorities of the Amazon. Español Português
Leaked documents show that
Jair Bolsonaro's government intends to use the Brazilian president's hate
speech to isolate minorities living in the Amazon region. The PowerPoint
slides, which democraciaAbierta has seen, also reveal plans to implement
predatory projects that could have a devastating environmental impact.
The Bolsonaro government has as one of its priorities to strategically occupy the Amazon region to prevent the implementation of multilateral conservation projects for the rainforest, specifically the so-called “Triple A” project.
"Development projects must be implemented on the Amazon basin to integrate it into the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the so-called 'Triple A' project. To do this, it is necessary to build the Trombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname," one of slides read.
In February, ministers Gustavo Bebianno (Secretary-General of the Presidency), Ricardo Salles (Environment) and Damares Alves (Women, Family and Human Rights) had planned travel to Tiriós (Pará) to speak with local leaders about the construction of a bridge over the Amazon River in the city of Óbidos, a hydroelectric plant in Oriximiná, and the expansion of the BR-163 highway to the Suriname border.
A PowerPoint presentation that details the projects announced by the Bolsonaro government for the region. The presentation, which was leaked to democraciaAbierta, argues that a strong government presence in the Amazon region is important to prevent any conservation projects from taking roots.
The slides are clear. Before any predatory plan is implemented, the strategy begins with rhetoric. Bolsonaro's hate speech already shows that the plan is working. The Amazon is on fire. It's been burning for weeks and not even those who live in Brazil were fully aware. Thanks to the efforts of local communities with the help of social networks, the reality is finally going viral.
The online reaction is far from being sensationalist. This year alone, Brazil had 72,000 fire outbreaks, half of which are in the Amazon. The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) reported that its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018.
Attacking non-governmental organizations is part of the Bolsonaro government's strategy. According to another of the PowerPoint's slide, the country is currently facing a globalist campaign that "relativizes the National Sovereignty in the Amazon Basin," using a combination of international pressure and also what the government called "psychological oppression" both externally and internally.
This campaign mobilizes environmental and indigenous rights organizations, as well as the media, to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Brazilian institutions. The conspiracy also encourages minorities – mainly indigenous and quilombola (residents of settlements founded by people of African origin who escaped slavery) – to act with the support of public institutions at the federal, state and municipal levels. The result of this movement, they say in the presentation, restricts "the government's freedom of action".
Item 3 of the document points out that the seeks to fight off "international pressures" for the implementation of a conservation projects known as Triple A. | democraciaAbierta
So it is unsurprising that Bolsonaro's response to the fires comes in the form of an attack on NGOs. On Wednesday, August 21, Bolsonaro said he believed non-governmental organizations could be behind the fires as a tactic "to draw attention against me, against the government of Brazil.".
Bolsonaro did not cite names of NGOs and, when asked if he has evidence to support the allegations, he said there were no written records of the suspicions. According to the president, NGOs may be retaliating against his government's budget cuts. His government cut 40 percent of international transfers to NGOs, he added.
Part of the government's strategy of circumventing this globalist campaign is to depreciate the relevance and voices of minorities that live in the region, transforming them into enemies. One of the tactics cited in the document is to redefine the paradigms of indigenism, quilombolism and environmentalism through the lenses of liberalism and conservatism, based on realist theories. Those are, according to a slide, "the new hopes for the Homeland: Brazil above everything!"
The Bolsonaro government has as one of its priorities to strategically occupy the Amazon region to prevent the implementation of multilateral conservation projects for the rainforest, specifically the so-called “Triple A” project.
"Development projects must be implemented on the Amazon basin to integrate it into the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the so-called 'Triple A' project. To do this, it is necessary to build the Trombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname," one of slides read.
In February, ministers Gustavo Bebianno (Secretary-General of the Presidency), Ricardo Salles (Environment) and Damares Alves (Women, Family and Human Rights) had planned travel to Tiriós (Pará) to speak with local leaders about the construction of a bridge over the Amazon River in the city of Óbidos, a hydroelectric plant in Oriximiná, and the expansion of the BR-163 highway to the Suriname border.
A PowerPoint presentation that details the projects announced by the Bolsonaro government for the region. The presentation, which was leaked to democraciaAbierta, argues that a strong government presence in the Amazon region is important to prevent any conservation projects from taking roots.
The slides are clear. Before any predatory plan is implemented, the strategy begins with rhetoric. Bolsonaro's hate speech already shows that the plan is working. The Amazon is on fire. It's been burning for weeks and not even those who live in Brazil were fully aware. Thanks to the efforts of local communities with the help of social networks, the reality is finally going viral.
The online reaction is far from being sensationalist. This year alone, Brazil had 72,000 fire outbreaks, half of which are in the Amazon. The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) reported that its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018.
Attacking non-governmental organizations is part of the Bolsonaro government's strategy. According to another of the PowerPoint's slide, the country is currently facing a globalist campaign that "relativizes the National Sovereignty in the Amazon Basin," using a combination of international pressure and also what the government called "psychological oppression" both externally and internally.
This campaign mobilizes environmental and indigenous rights organizations, as well as the media, to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Brazilian institutions. The conspiracy also encourages minorities – mainly indigenous and quilombola (residents of settlements founded by people of African origin who escaped slavery) – to act with the support of public institutions at the federal, state and municipal levels. The result of this movement, they say in the presentation, restricts "the government's freedom of action".
Item 3 of the document points out that the seeks to fight off "international pressures" for the implementation of a conservation projects known as Triple A. | democraciaAbierta
So it is unsurprising that Bolsonaro's response to the fires comes in the form of an attack on NGOs. On Wednesday, August 21, Bolsonaro said he believed non-governmental organizations could be behind the fires as a tactic "to draw attention against me, against the government of Brazil.".
Bolsonaro did not cite names of NGOs and, when asked if he has evidence to support the allegations, he said there were no written records of the suspicions. According to the president, NGOs may be retaliating against his government's budget cuts. His government cut 40 percent of international transfers to NGOs, he added.
Part of the government's strategy of circumventing this globalist campaign is to depreciate the relevance and voices of minorities that live in the region, transforming them into enemies. One of the tactics cited in the document is to redefine the paradigms of indigenism, quilombolism and environmentalism through the lenses of liberalism and conservatism, based on realist theories. Those are, according to a slide, "the new hopes for the Homeland: Brazil above everything!"
Amazon Fires Prompt Alarm in Europe, and Anger at Brazil’s Government
Richard Pérez-Peña and Matina
Stevis-Gridneff. The New York Times. August 23, 2019
European leaders have reacted with growing fear and anger to the fires ravaging Brazil’s rain forest, calling it a worldwide crisis that is accelerating global warming — and one that Brazil’s leader appears unwilling to combat.
President Emmanuel Macron of France went so far, on Friday, as to accuse President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil of lying about being committed to fighting climate change and protecting the Amazon forest.
As a result, Mr. Macron said, he would try to kill a major trade deal between Europe and South America that has been years in the making.
Mr. Macron’s statement was an escalation in a series of sharp comments and accusations he has traded with Mr. Bolsonaro, an unusually harsh exchange between the leaders of two democracies.
The French president and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany both said that the Amazon fires should be added to the agenda of the Group of 7 summit meeting being held this weekend, and that Mr. Bolsonaro replied by telling them to keep their noses out of Brazil’s business.
The fires have prompted a widespread backlash against Brazil and its far-right president, who has cut back on protection of wild lands and wants to open more rain forest to farming and ranching.
Environmentalists and celebrities have called for a boycott of the country, and Germany and Norway have halted payments to a $1.2 billion Amazon conservation program after Mr. Bolsonaro’s government interfered with its leadership.
While many of the fires have been set by farmers on lands that were previously cleared, others were set by people clearing rain forest anew, for crops or pastures. The number of fires has increased sharply this year, and environmentalists say Mr. Bolsonaro’s government has enabled and even encouraged the destruction, which it denies.
Mr. Bolsonaro claimed this week that nongovernmental organizations had set fires to make his administration look bad, in retaliation for having their government grants cut, but conceded that he had no evidence for the accusation. He said that his country did not have the resources to fight the fires effectively.
The Amazon forests are an important global repository of carbon, and when trees are burned they release carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. In addition, deforestation threatens indigenous peoples and wildlife found only in that region.
On Thursday, Mr. Macron tweeted: “Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis.”
ImageFires in the Amazon increased sharply this year.
Fires in the Amazon increased sharply this year.CreditRogerio Florentino/EPA, via Shutterstock
He said the Group of 7 should take up the matter at its meeting, which begins Saturday in Biarritz, France.
Mr. Bolsonaro accused Mr. Macron of trying to use the issue “for personal political gain.” The idea of major powers discussing a Brazilian problem without including Brazil, which is not a Group of 7 member, “evokes a misplaced colonialist mind-set,” he wrote.
But it soon became evident that Mr. Macron was not alone. The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said, “in the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity.”
On Friday, Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for Ms. Merkel, said at a news media briefing that “the extent of the fires in the Amazon area is shocking and threatening, not only for Brazil and the other affected countries, but also for the whole world.”
Like Mr. Macron, he said, “the chancellor is convinced that this acute emergency” should be on the Group of 7 agenda.
A spokesperson for the European Commission called the fires in Brazil “deeply worrying,” adding that “greenhouse gas emissions linked to deforestation are the second-biggest cause of climate change, so protecting forests is a significant part of our responsibility to meet the commitments under the Paris Agreement.”
Mr. Macron raised the stakes on Friday by taking a stand against one of the biggest trade agreements in history, between the European Union and Mercosur, the trading region that includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The deal, struck in June after two decades of negotiations, would lift tariffs on about $1 trillion worth of annual trade.
The agreement has met stiff opposition from environmental groups that say it would encourage the destruction of forests to make way for agriculture, and from farmers who fear cheap South American imports.
Mr. Macron, an advocate of battling climate change and a leader of one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers, has been hesitant about the deal. In June, before a political agreement was reached on the deal, he threatened to block it if Mr. Bolsonaro pulled Brazil out of the Paris climate accord, as he had threatened to do.
“We’re asking our farmers to stop using pesticides, we’re asking our companies to produce less carbon — that has a competitiveness cost,” Mr. Macron said at the time. “So we’re not going to say from one day to the next that we’ll let in goods from countries that don’t respect any of that.”
The two presidents discussed the matter later that month, at a Group of 20 meeting in Osaka, Japan.
“Given Brazil’s attitude over the past weeks, the president of the republic can only conclude that President Bolsonaro lied to him at the Osaka summit,” Mr. Macron’s office said in a statement released on Friday morning.
“Brazil’s decisions and comments over the past weeks show that President Bolsonaro has decided not to respect his obligations on climate change, nor to commit on issues related to biodiversity. Under these conditions, France is opposed to the Mercosur agreement as it stands.”
To go into effect, the agreement must be ratified by the European Parliament, and some member nations might insist on having their national parliaments vote on it, as well. Resistance to it was already strong enough that Mr. Macron’s opposition could be decisive.
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