
Amazon fires: Brazil threatened over EU trade deal - Nux
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49450495
======
speeder
I am from Brazil, my SO family is from the Amazon.

A lot of this situation is rather complicated, but I will try to write a
little of what I know.

1\. This is dry season, and fires are common, not just human-started ones,
natural fires are common too, fires do have a role in the ecosystem.

2\. A lot of the alarm raised by the media is more due to the hate on the
president than for good reasons, for example people are using as number of the
"increase of fires" comparisons between 2019 and 2013, but 2013 was a year
where the amount of fires was particularly low, there was some recent years
where the number of fires were just a little behind the current number, and
the current number is still waaaaay smaller than what it was some decades ago.

3\. It is illegal to clear land using fire in Brazil, usually the ones doing
it are tiny farmers that don't have resources to clear land the correct way,
or megacorporations that don't care (Cargill is a common culprit, not saying
they are the ones at fault this time, but often they are).

4\. Brazillian laws are kinda loopsided in ways that incentive people to do
some weird stuff, for example brazillian environment laws are MUCH, MUCH
harsher than other laws, this actually decreases compliance, because getting
caught is so dangerous compared to some other crimes, that doing other crimes
to not get caught is incentivized, there was a infamous case of a mayor of a
town that just outright murdered cops because the punishment for murder was
smaller than the punishment he would get if the cops managed to get to his
property and investigate it.

~~~
einpoklum
1\. "Fires are common" \- means Brazil should have been ready to tackle them,
and taken steps to minimize the chances of them breaking out in areas where
people are active. It seems it hasn't; and - on the contrary, has let logging
and other economic activity which can increase chances of fires expand
excessively and without proper regulation.

Finally, researchers claim that most fires right now are caused by humans (and
many started intentionally): [https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/brazils-
amazon-fires-st...](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/brazils-amazon-fires-
started-by-humans-environmentalists-say/ar-AAGb8KR?li=AAggFp4)

2\. How do you know the alarm is due to the "hate on the President"? Also, the
increase of fires should and can measured relative to _last_ year, not 2013.
Since 2014 there was a gradual decrease, and the amount/area of fires has
nearly doubled from 2018 to this year.

3\. If it's illegal and damaging, why are people and corporations doing it,
and doing it much more this year? It seems that to a great extent this is due
to the new government's policy and rhetoric; and to a lesser extent it's an
ongoing problem which both the previous and the current government have not
addressed well enough.

4\. Well, it seems the government is trying to avoid enforcing these harsh
laws. For example:

> The environmental minister, Ricardo Salles, tweeted on Wednesday that the
> fires were caused by dry weather, wind, and heat. But CNN meteorologist
> Haley Brink said the fires are "definitely human-induced," and can't be
> attributed to natural causes like lightning strikes.

so it seems the government is voluntarily looking the other way. If it claims
this is the cause, they are unlikely to vigorously pursue the culprits.

Bottom line: Don't do apologism for the government. Its behavior on
environmental issues is inexcusable, regardless of any other issues.

~~~
rodolphoarruda
> 1\. "Fires are common" \- means Brazil should have been ready to tackle them

No, they are common because historically it has been impossible to stop them
giving the limited reach of the government in the region. For example, not a
single word coming from state governors about the problem. There are 8 of them
all silent. Why? What happened to the "local authorities" that should be
working on issue since day 1?

> 2\. How do you know the alarm is due to the "hate on the President"?

Because we saw no alarms to previous presidents in the tenures. Fires were
orders of magnitude larger due to lack of interest or attention to
environmental causes in general. So, yes, it has to do with the pressure
groups' desire to damage this President's image, specially abroad (hence
Macron).

> 3\. If it's illegal and damaging, why are people and corporations doing it,
> and doing it much more this year?

Which corporations? Any names? Are they equally exposed in a negative fashion
by media? Any boycotts? Why aren't they sharing headlines with government
names in the news? The justice minister and half the congress love to play the
good guys who go after corrupt corporations (does Car Wash Operation ring a
bell?). They have put a dozen CEOs from the most well known Brazilian corps in
jail already. Not a single one from crimes against the environment. Why?

> 4\. it seems the government is trying to avoid enforcing these harsh laws

Law enforcement in continent sized developing countries is VERY difficult, let
alone in distant isolated parts of the territory. The level of violence and
corruption in those places is beyond mind boggling even to locals that were
borne and raised in the culture.

For outsiders like us -- looking at the problem from various angles and
distances -- the environmental issue in the Amazon is equally complex as the
ones we see in the middle east, in the Gaza strip, in hunger regions of Africa
etc. This is something that may drag on for decades without a definitive
solution, which is a sad thought for me as a Brazilian.

~~~
gleglegle
Bolsonaro has clearly encouraged deforestation. No other recent Brazilian
political leader been so explicit about it. He has also encouraged harassment
and hate towards natives living in forested areas.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/19/jair-
bolsonaro...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/19/jair-bolsonaro-
brazil-amazon-rainforest-deforestation)

~~~
rodolphoarruda
From the article:

But governing Brazil is no easy matter, he concluded. “It is difficult to be
president of Brazil because it is a president that has less authority,”

What Bolsonaro thinks or says has no immediate effect on what has been going
on in Amazon for decades. It's easy to blame him, but then... what do we do?
More laws? Who's enforcing them?

~~~
hutzlibu
Every president wants to have more power.

But the point is, that this president actions so far, did not help the
amazonas, so how would given him more power, not harm things even more?

------
andrenth
There's a lot of hyperbole surrounding this issue.

1) It is dry season in the region, and wildfires are a normal occurrence. 2)
Wildfires are up compared to the same month last year, but still below the
historical average. 3) Brazil already has strict environment protection laws
which trump even property rights. In the Amazon region, for example, 80% of
the area of any property must be preserved with native vegetation. No
developed country even comes close.

The reason there is so much hyperbole about the situation in Brazil is both
political and economic.

Economically, the current administration has cut funding to questionable NGOs,
which used to take the money and do nothing productive, or even worse, engage
in biopiracy. This has sparked strong reactions from those used to receive
Brazilian taxpayer money. European politicians fake outrage, but their
positions can be explained by the recent Mercosur-EU agreement, which has
generated a strong reaction by local producers, used to European
protectionism.

See France, for example. Macron is simultaneously criticized by both the left
and the right, and is trying a political win with local producers and greens,
even appealing to a photo of an Amazon wildfire taken 20 years ago by a
photographer who died in 2003 to put blame in the current Brazilian
administration [2].

Politically, this is only generating such a big reaction because of who's in
charge of government in Brazil. The media worldwide tends strongly to the
left, and any opportunity to criticize a right-wing administration is not
wasted. I'm not saying any government should be above criticism, but things
have to be done rationally.

1) If one refers to wildfire monitoring data [3], it can be easily seen that
the worst years were in the 2002-2007 range, at levels twice as bad as the
recent years. The country was then under a left-wing administration, and the
current media and political reactions were nowhere to be seen.

2) Bolivia has much more lax environment protection laws, and is currently
facing a way larger wildfire problem, probably the largest in its history. You
hardly see anything about it in the media, except sometimes as a footnote in a
story about Brazil. No European president is threatening their sovereignty; no
one says their president is the destroyer of the Earth.

3) The previous (impeached) Brazilian administration cut environmental
protection funds in 2015 from R$ 6b to R$ 1b. There was no outrage. Yet
somehow otherwise reasonable people think the Amazon was destroyed in 7 months
by the current administration.

[1] [https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-
bra...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil) [2]
[https://factcheck.afp.com/prayforamazonas-thousands-
people-a...](https://factcheck.afp.com/prayforamazonas-thousands-people-are-
sharing-old-pictures-posts-about-amazon-rainforest-fires) [3]
[http://queimadas.dgi.inpe.br/queimadas/portal/estatistica_pa...](http://queimadas.dgi.inpe.br/queimadas/portal/estatistica_paises)

~~~
gleglegle
These are man-made fires driven by large-scale deforestation. Calling them
wildfires is misleading.

~~~
andrenth
There's nothing that implies natural causes in the word "wildfire".

~~~
gleglegle
Definitions here "wildfire, defined as largescale forest loss resulting from
the burning of forest vegetation with no visible human conversion or
agricultural activity afterward". There is clear agricultural activity
immediately shown after the vast majority of Brazilian fires.
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6407/1108.ful...](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6407/1108.full.pdf)

~~~
andrenth
"Any large fire that spreads rapidly and is hard to extinguish."

I'm using the dictionary definition of the word.

~~~
jeremysalwen
So you would honestly describe the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which clearly
was large, spread rapidly, and was hard to extinguish as a "wildfire"?

~~~
andrenth
Was it in the wild?

------
lbrito
It is interesting to see the global shock about the fires. For us in Brazil,
it is hardly a shock coming from this administration.

Here are some facts the president that should shed a light on how he and his
office views environmental issues. If anyone is interested I can gather some
links to detail any of them.

* The Minister of the Environment was condemned for crimes against the environment in 2017.

* Brazil has a Ministry of the Environment. President Bolsonaro unsuccessfully tried to extinguish that ministry once he assumed office.

* President Bolsonaro transferred the Brazilian Forest Serivce to the Ministry of Agriculture (!!). It previously was under the Ministry of the Environment.

* Ricardo Salles (Minister of the Environment) decided to review _all_ the national reserves in Brazil so they can get resized or extinguished.

* A standard procedure when officers find illegal logging sites is to destroy their logging equipment (chainsaws etc). President Bolsonaro personally asked his minister of the Environment to instruct officers not to do that.

* Environmental protection agencies now announce beforehand where the inspections are going to be.

* President Bolsonaro received a fine for illegal fishing a few years ago. A few months after assuming office, he fired the officer (just a regular low-level environment officer, same level as municipal police) that fined him.

~~~
gldalmaso
* Bolsonaro fired the director of INPE after calling deforestation data lies.

* Bolsonaro refused to answer about environmental policy when asked about it by Germany and Norway who contribute millions to the Amazon Fund, he subsequently told Brazil doesn't need that money and told Norway to send the money to Germany to help them reforest.

* One of his first actions in office was this one: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/02/brazil-jair-bo...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/02/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-amazon-rainforest-protections)

~~~
lbrito
>he subsequently told Brazil doesn't need that money and told Norway to send
the money to Germany to help them reforest.

Another answer of Bolsonaro's to Norway was pointing the finger at that
country's supposed whale hunting. Unfortunately for him, the video he used to
attack Norway was actually from the Faroe islandsm, which are Danish:

[https://www.france24.com/en/20190819-bolsonaro-takes-on-
norw...](https://www.france24.com/en/20190819-bolsonaro-takes-on-norway-for-
whaling-but-bungles-it)

------
dmix
There's also the huge sargassum seaweed problem that is heavily influenced by
the mass deforestation of the Amazon [1] (among others), which is
significantly harming the beaches, impacting wildlife, and values of
properties in Florida and Cancun and on all beaches along that whole side of
the peninsula.

I just came back from a trip to Mexico and it was everywhere and smells awful.
You can smell it driving on the highway from the airport. Its diverting lots
of resources from the Mexican navy, local governments, and volunteers who have
to clean it up constantly to keep the beaches usable.

There was plenty of sea turtles who love to eat the stuff.

This is a good opportunity for some international pressure as the consequences
are very much here and now. Not some hypothetical climate change in the
future.

1\. [https://youtu.be/whqaV8xfOTg?t=85](https://youtu.be/whqaV8xfOTg?t=85)

~~~
sgt101
There is nothing hypothetical about climate change.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record)

~~~
Doxterpepper
I think his point is that the consequences of climate change are still down
the road and just how bad it will be is yet to be seen. Harder to get people
around on big changes due to climate change since we're a couple years off
from big consequences. The impact from deforestation of the Amazon can be seen
right now.

~~~
underbluewaters
The consequences of climate change are here and have been for years. In Hawaii
>50% of coral reefs died off in 2015 [1], including my favorite fishing spots.
Three years later most of this eroded habitat was then destroyed by winter
swells. These reefs had _never_ bleached in modern history. I saw a coral
colony the size of a small house (100s of years old) flipped over and crushed.
It was so sad that it was a major contributor to me deciding to leave the
state.

Many coastal communities are dealing with more serious problems.

[1] [https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/reefresponse/files/2016/09/WHI-
Coral...](https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/reefresponse/files/2016/09/WHI-Coral-
Bleaching-Survey.pdf)

------
aznpwnzor
The world needs to pay Brazil for management of the Amazon. If the Amazon is
truly (and it is) this important to the planet, then they should be paid to
not destroy it to earn a living.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I don't necessarily disagree, but this feels like a diplomatic nightmare. It
would encourage the rest of the world to threaten to burn _their_ resources
too, in order to extract payment.

Perhaps we _should_ be paying the rest of the world too, but what if there's a
disagreement about how much a resource is worth? And remember, this is all
money that could be invested in solar panels, or carbon capture, or countless
other things.

~~~
mjevans
Clearly the UN should be funded and buy this to set aside as a global reserve.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Then the UN can help put out fires, but only if fired upon.

------
vfc1
It's a complex issue, Brasil is doing what the US and Europe did 150 years
ago: burning down the forest and taking advantage of natural resources until a
large percentage of the country is covered by agricultural fields.

We did so why can't they? I think they shouldn't because of global warming and
what science tell us, but there should be some compensation given under the
form of a tax to keep the forest alive, I don't think that would be ecological
blackmail at all.

The biggest export of Brasil is soy beans (27 billion market) mostly to China
-
[https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/bra/show...](https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/bra/show/1201/2017/),
but of course its much more complicated then that.

The China demand has increased recently due to the US trade wars, so that
plays a role too.

There are tens of different crops used for all sorts of products, like palm
oil used in doughnuts, kids cereals etc.

For example, leather is exported to China, that produces clothes that are sold
globally a lot of it to the west, but not only.

The Amazon basin has a huge concentration of cattle in the world (200 million
heads), and is a huge exporter of soy beans (27 billion market).

Pasture land and cattle feed crops are the main driver of the deforestation,
so reducing global meat comsumption is the only way to stop the economic
incentive to tear down the rainforest.

Brasil by itself has no interest in tearing down the forest to feed their
population, this level of agriculture is for exporting and for feeding a
highly resource intensive and environmental impactful process: meat
production.

Its a global problem, maybe threatening the trade deal with Brasil is an
effective short term solution to put some brakes on at least some of the
damage, but without a global change of common habits like eating too much
meat, the deforestation is not going to slow down anytime soon, by the
contrary.

~~~
einpoklum
The fact that the causes are complex and that there's a global aspect to it
does not detract from the fact that it is absolutely imperative to preserve
the Amazon. And - Brazil can do a much better job of it - at least as good as
last year.

As for the cattle and Soy export - you're right in that they are major
contributors. But again - that was true last year as well. Also, it is up to
Brazil to shape its economy so that no more land is cleared. Farming can be
intensified (not sure how much, for Soy, but it definitely can); and beef
production should just be indirectly capped through prevention of clearing. In
fact, one might argue that there should be a re-forestation effort, but I'm
not sure enough about that to make the argument proper.

And - what about the importance of those exports, you might ask? Brazil's
economy should evolve - if even through protectionist measures of some sort -
so as to be somewhat more self-reliant in terms of production. Japan did it,
China did it, so can Brazil. Also, let's look at its imports:

    
    
        Mineral fuels including oil: US$26.2 billion (14.5% of total imports)
        Electrical machinery, equipment: $21.8 billion (12%)
        Machinery including computers: $19.1 billion (10.5%)
        Vehicles: $14 billion (7.7%)
        Organic chemicals: $10.6 billion (5.8%)
        Ships, boats: $9.9 billion (5.4%)
        Fertilizers: $8.6 billion (4.8%)
        Plastics, plastic articles: $7.3 billion (4%)
        Pharmaceuticals: $7.2 billion (4%)
        Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $5.5 billion (3%)
    

What it can and should do is, therefore:

* Transition to renewable energy.

* Develop and expand industry, particularly of land and sea vehicles, machinery.

* Transition from plastic to renewable/recyclable materials which can be produced locally.

Of course this is not easy to do, but it's definitely possible.

~~~
vfc1
I'm not excusing Brasil (I don't come from there), my main point was that it's
just not Brasil's "fault" for not taking care of the forest, a lot of
countries have a ton of responsibility: China and the west for example.

If anything, these type of articles come at a suspicious time so close to the
signing of the Mercosur trade deal, because yes the forest is burning but
according to Nasa not more and not less than in other years.

Which is bad and should be stopped, but why are we talking about it so much
now? It reeks of political manipulation.

I don't like that at all but well if it forces some sort of immediate action
and concession from Brasil it's better than nothing, but it does not tackle
the underlying issues.

If people want to do something about it, the most important thing is to stop
eating the main end product of the Amazonia burning which is meat.

Not necessarily only from Brasil, because they export the crops for cattle
feed globally. I'm talking about meat in general.

------
mcsalgado
I see a lot of bullshit being posted here. Bolsonaro himself actively
encouraged the deforestation, during his campaign and during all of his
current administration until now.

"The fires are fueled not only by a rise in global temperatures but also by
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. The fiery, anti-environment populist has
encouraged settlements in the Amazon region, sacked the head of the government
agency that monitors deforestation from space, and just this week blamed NGOs
for setting the fires to make him look bad."

[https://www.wired.com/story/humans-more-than-drought-are-
fue...](https://www.wired.com/story/humans-more-than-drought-are-fueling-the-
amazons-flames/)

------
anewguy9000
for comparison:

[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-
bra...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil)

interestingly nasa says there is nothing unusual about the fires, while it is
brazil's space agency that the mainstream news is quoting. which reference is
trusted just seems to depend on which will get the most clicks?

~~~
marcosdumay
The fires are larger than on the few previous years. They are still well
bellow the historical average. The recent trend has been of growth.

A lot of this year's fires have been on a natural preservation area that in
theory can not be used to agriculture. Some people claim the area got out of
equilibrium due to global warming and the fire was unavoidable, some claim
it's a criminal fire caused by people that want to plant there. Honestly, I
have no idea how to assess media claims anymore, most likely, both are false
and it's something else.

------
vosper
So this is a stick, but where's the carrot?

All these countries that are complaining about the burning forest - why don't
they pony up some cash and pay Brazil not to burn it down?

If the Amazon is the "lungs of the world" then surely between all the
countries of the world (or, just a few, or just one rich one) we could make it
worth their while to keep the forest intact.

~~~
shados
I mean, the Brazilians will suffer too when the lack of Amazon forest starts
fucking the world up. With that said, yes, 100% agree that we should just pay
them to stop the bleeding. That forest is worth more than money. We can figure
out a better solution later.

~~~
ikll
Europe did pay.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-
norway...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-
norway/norway-stops-amazon-fund-contribution-in-dispute-with-brazil-
idUSKCN1V52C9)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/norway-
halts-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/norway-halts-amazon-
fund-donation-dispute-brazil-deforestation-jair-bolsonaro)

~~~
shados
I was more thinking if a bunch of first world countries got together and put
up an amount of money that Brazil can't possibly give up on.

~~~
ikll
Well, for what it's worth, according to the articles it amounted to billions
of dollars. It was supposed to be used to police the area for deforestation,
fires and other things.

As a Brazilian I disagree that other countries should be paying us anything,
we should sort those problems by ourselves.

~~~
shados
For sure, I don't disagree with you, but I dont think the world can wait for
those problems to be solved.

~~~
ikll
Oh, that's for sure.

However I think there's a huge incentive problem here: The people who stand to
gain from foreign money coming to "save Amazon" (Brazil's general population)
is not the same people who stand to gain from its destruction
(businesspeople).

Second, a large chunk of the current government ideologically believe there's
nothing wrong with deforestation, or deny it, or deny climate change. Hell,
some of them are flat-earthers.

It is common in the Brazilian right to associate environmental causes (include
climate change) with leftists, and the current Brazilian government treats the
left (any kind of left) as the worst possible enemies. So a sure-fire way of
not being heard by the right is... talking about environmental causes/climate
change.

So, in the end it should really be an astonishing amount to make sense for the
current government to change its course.

------
albandread
As Boris criticises Brazil; he might want to reflect that until the 1990s;
here in the UK we used to set our own fields on fire to burn the stubble. I
remember the smoke; and the red sun and moon.

I am pro preserving the rain-forest; but interestingly enough that is also a
human managed environment and has been for 1000s of years.

As for bio-diversity; I am pretty sure a lot of the UK was once forested and
certainly had wolves, bears and other inconvenient creatures; at this point we
are starting to even wipe out our insects. For the sake of bio-diversity we
should re-introduce all those animals.

~~~
myeviltwin
Unfortunately you cannot re-introduce those that are extinct, or doomed
because of the gene pool already diminished. A complex ecosystem needs long
time to develop.

------
abhinai
I wish the United States had the will power to similarly try and influence
Brazil to stop the deforestation in Amazon.

~~~
superpermutat0r
China seems to be the biggest Brazil partner. EU and USA do not contribute
much.

~~~
radicalbyte
Given that the Chinese are big buyers of Soya Beans and the USA are using Soya
Beans in their trade war against China, I can't help but think that they've
basically been pouring petrol onto the Amazon..

------
stebann
Amazon deforestation and land-business model is the human piece of all this.
Far right in South-America always wanted to have more land and more space for
their agro-business, and now they have many political influence to do whatever
they want. They don't care the damage and they are screwing every industry in
South-America for their goals. Argentine president, Mauricio Macri, also let
his business partners to do the same in the Chaco. I hope other European
countries respond.

------
hugh4life
If these fires are being set intentionally, shouldn't it be possible to
pinpoint exactly where these fires are occurring and monitor who is reclaiming
the land for other purposes... and then sanction them?

~~~
jefft255
Harder than you might think! People in my lab have worked on a system that
monitor deforestation in Indonesia with satellite data
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01431161.2019.15...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01431161.2019.1579390)
and it’s not a simple problem. You need to work tightly with local
authorities, and they are often complicit in these deforestations.

------
panpanna
About time.

If this president has no problem openly screwing his own people and lie about
it right in your face, I don't think he makes the greatest trade partner
anyway.

~~~
cubaia
Aside from your opinion about that president, this is an interesting take,
since the trades are between countries and the markets within those countries
-- not between presidents.

> I don't think he makes the greatest trade partner anyway

This seems to imply that the president of Brazil represents the entirety of an
economic block, and as such a trade deal should suffer because of just one
person?

~~~
petre
Brazilians chose him to represent them and negotiate trade deals. He refused
to meet France's foreign affairs minister and had a haircut instead. I guess
these are the consequences and one thing leads to another. At least the EU is
acting more like a block this time, rather than being in disagreement. Why
give Brazil aid from EU taxpayer money to fight deforestation if they're not
interested? We could take his advice and use those funds to plant trees in
Europe instead.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/world/t...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/bolsonaros-
amazon-sized-spat-with-germany-norway-threatens-europe-south-america-trade-
deal/2019/08/20/cc60ee3c-c2b8-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.html%3foutputType=amp)

------
dragosmocrii
I don't understand the reasoning behind this suggestion. Is it that the
government in Brasil does not want to put off the fires because they see this
as a great opportunity to clear more land for raising more cattle?

~~~
thomasfortes
Yes, this and a few other things, just now (as of half an hour ago) the
president authorized the armed forces to help with the fires, and it just
happened because there's a lot of pressure, internal and from outside, but the
actual president also wants to eliminate indigenous people and their land to
allow illegal mining and illegal wood cutters to thrive.

As I said, there's a lot more to this, for example, farmers started the
burning (we're calling it "day of the fire") because of shit that the
president said.

Also he blamed NGOs for the fires, when asked if he had any proof he said "Is
there need for proof?".

He's a short sighted moron doing what short sighted morons do, it's a sad
state of affairs here.

------
anonymousDan
From an Irish perspective, this is actually quite clever politics from the Leo
Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister). Ever since this potential
trade deal was announced, he has been getting it in the neck from the Irish
beef industry, who are quite powerful and stand to lose a lot if open access
to EU markets is given to Brazilian and Argentinian producers. So I can't
imagine he would lose too much sleep if the trade deal was in fact cancelled
because of this.

------
argo_
things in Brazil are getting really weird.. most ministers and politicians
started to use alt-right vaporwave meme aesthetics on their social media
profiles, even though this is a clearly neonazi joke

------
lbrito
I'm from Brazil.

For the rest of HN which might not know: the president has long dismissed
environmental issues as idle "communist" talk (in his own words: "Construction
projects get delayed because someone finds a petrified poo of an indigenous
person"[1].

His Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, has a history[2] of
environment-related crimes. He is basically a lobbyist for mining and logging
corporations.

The Amazon fires are just the most jarring example of how the administration
doesn't care about the environment, but they are far from the only or even the
greatest environmental issue right now in Brazil.

[1] [https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2019/08/cocozinho-
petr...](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2019/08/cocozinho-petrificado-
de-indio-barra-licenciamento-de-obras-diz-bolsonaro.shtml)

[2] [https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-
paulo/noticia/2018/12/19/justica...](https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-
paulo/noticia/2018/12/19/justica-de-sp-condena-futuro-ministro-do-meio-
ambiente-por-improbidade-administrativa.ghtml)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
The agricultural trade is the root cause of the Amazon deforestation, so this
is good.

------
mklarmann
Am I a bit wimpy, when I have to think about all the animals that live in
these forest, right now being burned alive?

I have a hard time grasping why, again, people are so damn greedy. For the
quick money, basically destroy this precious resource of the amazon forest. I
am really angry. I stand with the people, that care about this and want it to
end [1]

I do hope, that this Mr. "Trump of the Tropics", listens to his colleagues in
Germany, France, etc. and just stops.

I cannot consume any more beef from south america, knowing this is happening
because of it.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/violadavis/status/1164720036021321728?s=...](https://twitter.com/violadavis/status/1164720036021321728?s=20)

------
mcfartin
Wonder if any of the Amazon indeginous tribes had some ancient knowledge of
handling fires. I bet there were some doozies back in the day lack of
technology and tribal wars must have sparked some maybe there is some good
strategy they came up with or did they just let them burn?

------
wtdata
We all want to stop the fires, but the fires are the same as they ever were.
This isn't about the fires, if it was, the sanctions would have taken place
already during Dilma or Lula's government:

"As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that
total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the
average in comparison to the past 15 years." [1]

[1] [https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-
bra...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil)

~~~
neves
The fire activity has radically decreased in the last years. The average isn't
a good measure.

~~~
wtdata
You mean, with President Temer?

~~~
neves
No, since Marina Silva was the Environment Minister. Her effective work
decrease deforestation.

------
enterx
free market they said. it's going to fun they said.

------
ntnxw
According to the NASA the fires of this year are in the average so what
exactly are they trying to achieve? Is this simply populism?

[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-
bra...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil)

>As of August 16, 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that
total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the
average in comparison to the past 15 years.

~~~
amaccuish
Isn't the problem that, yes, they're below average now (because we're not at
the end of the year yet), but they shouldn't be so high at _this_ time of the
year, and the peak should come much later (I think August to October)? (I'm no
expert on this!)

Don't get me wrong, I think it's shitty that because of history, the US and
the UK (I'm from the UK) got a headstart and polluted all they wanted. But the
fact of the matter is, we know far more about the climate now, and such
pollution simply can't happen now. I'd really like to see Western countries
providing more funding for economic development in other countries,
contributing to more green technologies etc, since a lot of their/our gains
were by chance that we could pollute all we wanted 200 years ago. And not
abusing globalisation and shitting on countries that don't fall for "free
trade" which turns them in to low wage workers whilst the West enjoys the
fruits of their labour.

The thing is, when it comes to the environment, it affects everyone.

~~~
speeder
I am from Brazil

Amount of fire is... normal.

About november (remember Brazil is south hemisphere) the humid season starts
and the fires stop (even if people WANT to set stuff on fire it doesn't work,
my SO is from Amazon state, according to her family except those months where
the fire is possible, it is normal for it to rain every single day, sometimes
multiple times per day... my SO misses the rain so much that she often opens
rainymood.com )

------
major505
Deflorestation and fires are a problem in the Brazilian amazon many since
ever.

Besides news of fire in amazon this is a common phenomenon that time of the
year. The biggest problem is this is the Dry season, combining with fires
spread by farmers owners used to clean the land and start a new crop (or
grazing for animals), that inevitable get out of control.

The thing is, biggest producers usually follow more strict rules, medium and
small farms still start fires, because is a quicker and cheapper way to clean
the land in the start of a new season.

I`m not a specialist, but as far as I researched, staring fires, specially in
native florests, is illegal, but the ambiental police is low in resources when
it comes of fiscalization and appplication of the law.

The fund to protect the amazon florest, had been cut in radically in the last
10 years. To give perspective, in the last goverment, it was dropped from 6.5
billion to 1.2 billion.

What we can take from the current situation:

\- There was increase in fire area in the amazon region, but this happens in a
yearly basis.

\- There where a sistematic cut in the budget for protecting the florest.

\- Add the low budget situation, to corruption of polititians in the regional
level, and is a recipt for disaster.

\- The current news are worrisome, but they are boosted by the current
political climate. The press hate Bolsonaro almost as much as they hate Trump.
Some of it based in facts, some in pure histeria.

\- Much international pressure are now comming because the brazilian goverment
stop working with international ONGs that used to receive money for goverment
to do nothing about. No international ONGs cried with almost 100k area fires
that happened in 2010, or the 79ks that happened a few years before.

\- In the end is all about money. The forest will continue to burn, animals
will continue to die. No on will remmember in a few months.

\- Independent of what the goverment does (and is current doing a crappy job,
don't take me wrong), there will still be attacked by the press. Is how it
works.

~~~
diegoholiveira
Exactly.

Those people blaming the current president doesn't understand that this is not
a new problem. They're doing this only because the president is not who they
want. I never saw the world saying anything when the Left was in the
government and this same thing happen.

~~~
zekrioca
Try thinking geopolitically, and above all, contextually.

