Jeering activists interrupted a speech by Ricardo Salles on
Wednesday at the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week conference in
Salvador, Brazil. Booing protesters virtually drowned out Salles' speech during
which one activist held a placard reading: 'Don't you get tired of your own
lies?' The minister and the government of the far-right president, Jair
Bolsonaro, have come under fire for their policies, which activists say are
harming the environment
Brazilian minister booed at climate event as outcry grows
over Amazon fires
Political storm over rainforest devastation as Ricardo Salles
attends summit
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Thu 22 Aug 2019 19.33 BST First published on Thu 22 Aug 2019
16.47 BST
The environment minister of Brazil, where wildfires have
been sweeping the Amazon rainforest, was booed at a climate event on Wednesday
as celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Ariana Grande joined an
international chorus of criticism.
Videos of Ricardo Salles being booed by demonstrators as he took
to the stage at Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week in the north-eastern
city of Salvador circulated widely in Brazil. An opposition senator is planning
to seek his impeachment at Brazil’s supreme court.
On Wednesday, the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro,
suggested NGOs were to blame for the surge in rainforest blazes because they
lost money under his administration – but provided no evidence for his claim.
Salles flew over fires in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso –
an agricultural powerhouse – on Wednesday, and told reporters that some of the
fires were “intentional” and others “incidental”.
“It is drier, warmer, with more wind, and this allows a
greater spread,” Salles said, according to the O Globo newspaper.
Analysts said the Amazon has become a political problem for
Bolsonaro, who wants to develop the rainforest and has told foreigners to mind
their own business.
On Thursday, UN secretary-general António Guterres tweeted
that he was “deeply concerned” by the fires. “The Amazon must be protected,” he
posted.
“A perfect fire, rather than a perfect storm, is forming,”
said Marcus Melo, a professor of political science at the Federal University of
Pernambuco. “These are important political losses.”
Ricardo Salles is
booed at the opening session of the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week.
Nasa tweeted photos of smoke and fires over several Amazon
states, saying that while blazes are common in these drier, winter months, “the
number of fires may be record-setting”. Fires are up by more than 80% so far
compared with last year, according to Brazil’s space research institute.
Environmentalists blame Bolsonaro’s attack on environmental
protection agencies and plans to develop protected indigenous reserves for inflaming
deforestation. The Folha de São Paulo newspaper reported that in some regions
farmers emboldened by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric planned “fire days” to burn pasture
and areas being deforested.
More than three million people liked a photo of burning
forest that Leonardo DiCaprio shared on his Instagram feed.
“Terrifying to think that the Amazon … has been on fire and
burning for the last 16 days running, with literally no media coverage whatsoever!
Why?” he posted. “The largest rainforest in the world is on fire,” Ariana
Grande posted on her Instagram story. She also criticised the perceived lack of
media attention.
Leading figures in the agribusiness sector, which is key to
Bolsonaro’s support and represents nearly a quarter of Brazil’s GDP, warned
that outrage over his environmental policies would hurt exports and could
scupper a trade deal between the South American trade block Mercosur and the
European Union.
“We are paying a very
high price,” the former agriculture minister and soybean baron Blairo Maggi
told business daily Valor recently.
“Agribusiness
sectors who know that this [rising deforestation] is going to create problems
for market access, for product price, are beginning to mobilise,” Marcello
Brito, the president of the Brazilian Agrobusiness Association, told Valor on
Wednesday.
Melo, the
political scientist, said an unusual “arc of alliance” was forming between
agribusiness and environmentalists.
But Bolsonaro and
his ministers are unlikely to change tack until the real economic consequences
of their assault on the rainforest become apparent, said Paulo Baía, a
professor of political science at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Instead
they will double down on nationalist rhetoric. “They are doing what they want
for the public that supports them,” he said.
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