Brazil's Environment Ministry "Completely Paralyzed" As Amazon Crumbles Before Fire, Logging, Mining
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During a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below. Elsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve.
“The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s enfeebled environmental agency, Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts. “Under this government there will be no combating [of rainforest destruction],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.”
Under pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron condemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon – Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive. “This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro insisted earlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary.
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Batista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to his denialist handling of coronavirus, which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.” The former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction