Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asserted that he was failing to “kill the cancer” which he claimed to represent environmental NGOs and denounced an international plot accusing him of being responsible for the forest fires in the Amazon.
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“You know that NGOs have no say in me. I am firm with these people, but I cannot kill this cancer that most NGOs are, ”said the head of state Thursday evening, during his weekly live transmission on Facebook.
The far-right leader also blasted the campaigns orchestrated by “bastards” who accuse him of “setting the Amazon on fire”.
He was referring, among other things, to a campaign on the Internet in English launched this week, entitled “Defundbolsonaro.org”, launched by several NGOs calling for any investment in Brazil to depend on firm commitments for the preservation of the Amazon.
This campaign has the slogan: “Bolsonaro sets the Amazon on fire. Again. Which side are you on? ”.
In June, international investment funds together weighing $ 4 trillion had already called for changes in the government’s environmental policy.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reacted on Friday to President Bolsonaro’s statements saying that “not only is he showing his utter contempt for the actions of NGOs (…) but his anti-environment policies have accelerated the destruction of the forest, with serious consequences for those who defend it but also for the health of thousands of people who breathe toxic air because of the fires ”.
General Augusto Heleno, Minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet, admitted in an interview published Friday in the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo that it was possible to “improve” the actions of the government to preserve the Amazon, but he he also criticized the NGOs.
“The favorite sport of some NGOs is to speak badly about the Amazon. Behind all of this, there are interests that go far beyond preservation, ”he said.
“When we say to choose between the Amazon and Bolsonaro, it makes no sense (…). Looks like Bolsonaro is responsible for everything that happens in the Amazon, but a lot of the information in these campaigns is fabricated and malicious, ”he continued.
The Brazilian government deployed the military in May to fight fires in the Amazon and banned all agricultural burns for four months in July.
But the satellite of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) identified a very high number of forest fires in the region in August, with 29,307 outbreaks, the second highest figure of the decade. This is only 5% less than in 2019, when the upsurge in fires sparked a major international crisis.
Further south, in the Pantanal, the planet’s largest wetland and biodiversity sanctuary, the number of outbreaks has tripled compared to August 2019.