Our tiny planet is divided up into even tinier sovereign nation-states, numbering about 200, each with its own culture, and more importantly, with its own conception of how it operates vis-a-vis the rest of the world. In many cases, this has no real bearing on anything, and certainly not the wholesale viability of the planet and the population that lives on its surface. Nobody cares who owns the Falklands or the Azores or the Marshall Islands. Yet, there is a place that has everything to do with avoiding, or at least delaying, the coming environmental collapse: the Amazon rainforest.
That’s why this news is so disturbing: “Managing the world’s largest rainforest is a Brazilian affair and foreigners should stop meddling in the Amazon,” Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s top security adviser, General Augusto Heleno Pereira, said in an interview. “I don’t accept this idea that the Amazon is world heritage, this is nonsense. The Amazon is Brazilian, the heritage of Brazil and should be dealt with by Brazil for the benefit of Brazil.”
From Bloomberg: Pereira’s comments coincide with government plans to review existing conservation areas amid growing pressure from mining and agriculture lobbies. This month the president cancelled a trip to New York City after Mayor Bill de Blasio and activists criticized the president over matters including his stance toward the Amazon rainforest, whose conservation scientists say is key to the climate change debate. Pereira had harsh words for non-governmental organizations that work in the country, saying that some of them operate as fronts for foreign interests. “There’s a totally unnecessary and nefarious foreign influence in the Amazon,” said Pereira. “NGOs hide strategic, economic and geopolitical interests.”
From this piece: Starting in the later part of the 20th century, deforestation has been driven by industrial activities and large-scale agriculture. By the 2000s more than three-quarters of forest clearing in the Amazon was for cattle-ranching. Now, vast areas of rainforest were felled for cattle pasture and soy farms, drowned for dams, dug up for minerals, and bulldozed for towns and colonization projects.
Now Bolsonaro has come to town, and he’s made it clear that Brazil has no compunction whatsoever about exploiting this region for monetary gain, and getting this done as soon as possible.
Walking humankind down from the precipice on which it finds itself, if it is to happen at all, will come from a coming together of all the world’s peoples. At this point, we’re running 100 MPH in precisely the opposite direction.
I’m afraid stern moral lectures and self-righteous posturing will not persuade Brazil. In fact it’s exactly that sort of approach which will guarantee an adverse reaction.
The answer is quite obvious, Brazil must be persuaded the Amazon Rain forest is more economically valuable intact than developed.
That’s going to be difficult, since two of the most rampant polluters, Russia and China are eagerly cutting down their own forests and environmentally critical regions, to export as energy to hypocritical western nations.
Sanctions won’t work since China and Russia won’t enforce any meaningful sanctions.
Instead the US, Europe, China and all the family of nations must find a way to make Brazil value protecting the Amazon.
(a good start would be stopping Russian wood chipping ancient, irreplaceable forests.)
Our tiny planet is divided up into even tinier sovereign nation-states, numbering about 200, each with its own culture, and more importantly, with its own conception of how it operates vis-a-vis the rest of the world. In many cases, this has no real bearing on anything, and certainly not the wholesale viability of the planet and the population that lives on its surface. Nobody cares who owns the Falklands or the Azores or the Marshall Islands. Yet, there is a place that has everything to do with avoiding, or at least delaying, the coming environmental collapse: the Amazon rainforest.
Craig,
I’m afraid stern moral lectures and self-righteous posturing will not persuade Brazil. In fact it’s exactly that sort of approach which will guarantee an adverse reaction.
The answer is quite obvious, Brazil must be persuaded the Amazon Rain forest is more economically valuable intact than developed.
That’s going to be difficult, since two of the most rampant polluters, Russia and China are eagerly cutting down their own forests and environmentally critical regions, to export as energy to hypocritical western nations.
Sanctions won’t work since China and Russia won’t enforce any meaningful sanctions.
Instead the US, Europe, China and all the family of nations must find a way to make Brazil value protecting the Amazon.
(a good start would be stopping Russian wood chipping ancient, irreplaceable forests.)