Brazil’s nature and people are under unprecedented threat. Its Amazon and Cerrado forests are aflame. Indigenous people are being driven out of their lands and even killed. Brazil’s environmental leaders and respected professionals, both inside the government and in non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and universities are under attack. The environmental NGOs have been singled out for particular blame, without any evidence, as responsible for most of what goes wrong. After demonizing their work, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro then declares his destructive and retrograde policies as remedies.
Bolsonaro and his Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, declare biodiversity and Brazilian indigenous people to be worthless obstacles to the country’s development, despite clear examples of how both can be part of economic frameworks that generate wealth even as forests are maintained.
Instead, the new government defends the largely discarded notion that economic progress requires forest destruction, opening the door for short-term profits through land mismanagement. Property owners all over Brazil are taking advantage of this new permissiveness to set fire to and deforest their properties, especially in the Amazon forests and the Cerrado savannas. Deforestation rates have doubled, and fires increased over 80% compared to the same period last year.
Their actions will not enrich them or Brazil over the longer term. Ironically, the modern agribusiness sector, which traditionally fought environmentalists, now shows much more environmental concern than the people in charge of its protection. Agribusiness leaders like Marcello Brito argue that environmental sustainability is indispensable for production. They also recognize the importance of a good environmental track record to build a reputation necessary for expanding trade. Modern agrotechnology allows them to increase production within the footprint of land already cleared, thus avoiding further frontier expansion for agriculture and cattle raising. The foolishly destructive policies of the Bolsonaro government are actually damaging future prospects for Brazil’s agribusiness sector.
Land that Brazil already set aside for protection is under siege as well. Conservation and protection programs carried out by previous governments through federal agencies that deal with protected areas, ICMBIO (the administrative arm of Brazil’s ministry of the environment for protected areas) and IBAMA (Brazil’s institute of environment and renewable natural resources) have been defunded or discontinued. Effective, long-term projects and partnerships have been cancelled. Park directors have been displaced, despite the quality of their work, and in many cases precisely because of their effectiveness. Some program leaders have been replaced by police officers, and local experts were transferred to unfamiliar areas. These rapid changes over the past 6 months have created chaos in formerly well-organized government agencies, since there are no rational discussions of
future plans. Instead, vague and undefined projects are announced in general terms, such as new mining ventures, highway construction, and hydroelectric dam schemes in the Amazon. What are not being announced are any plans for conservation of nature or indigenous culture.
We, the undersigned, are all leading conservation biodiversity specialists in our countries. We have admired the trend toward ever more careful stewardship of Brazil’s precious natural patrimony in past years. Now that has come to an abrupt halt, and Bolsonaro’s policies have resulted in wanton destruction and fire that will have global repercussions.
It is clear that any improvement in Bolsonaro’s dismal performance on the environment, and any hope that forested lands will once again receive adequate protection, will depend on continued pressure from concerned Brazilians and protests from the international community. Only this pressure will help revert the predicament of the Amazon and all other Brazilian biomes that are under serious threat. Brazil’s greatest wealth is its biodiversity, which is a global treasure