Nature 17

Our forest is humid and does not allow fire to spread inside it. The fires occur in practically the same places where indigenous people and mixed-race farmers burn their gardens in already deforested areas.

Telesur, 23.09.2020: Bolsonaro Blames Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, Press for Disasters.

Jair Bolsonaro (born 1955) has been President of Brazil since 2019. He has been heavily criticised for his authoritarian and neoliberal politics, as well as for his misogynistic, homophobic and racist statements.

From 2000 to 2018, an area of rainforest the size of Spain, some 513,016 km², was cut down (Amazonia Socioambiental 2020). Bolsonaro in particular, whose political career is supported by large landowners (Süddeutsche, 17.05.2020), is promoting the destruction and exploitation of the rainforest and, as a consequence, climate change. New areas for cattle breeding and agriculture are to be deforested. The extraction of natural resources such as minerals or oil in the Amazon region will also be permitted by new laws. In addition, Bolsonaro's plans will soon make it easier for companies to obtain legal titles to indigenous lands. The German federal government signed a supply chain agreement with Brazil in December 2019, according to which imports of meat, soy and wood were to be produced both in deforestation-free land and without slave-like working conditions (Nachdenkseiten 2021). However, one year later, while imports from Brazil had increased overall, only 22% of soy imports were certified (Deutsche Umwelthilfe 2020). In the second largest rainforest in the world, in western Papua New Guinea, which has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, deforestation is being promoted in indigenous areas (Raki Ap 2021) and the local population suppressed (UN Human Rights Office, 30.11.2020). At the same time, Western corporations such as BP continue to go about their business undisturbed there are active and do not ‚ want to interfere in political matters (Financial Times, 16.09.2019).

*Humans Rights Watch (2021): “Attempt to Greenwash Bolsonaro’s Environmental Record Backfires at OECD.”

2020