Plan to let miners strip the Amazon
‘‘If I get to the presidency not a single square centimetre will be demarcated as indigenous land.’’
Environmentalists are expressing alarm that Brazil, home to the largest remaining rainforest in the world, may soon elect a president who believes that the Amazon should be exploited for its mineral resources.
Jair Bolsonaro, 63, a far-right congressman and former army captain who is leading the polls going into the first round of elections on Sunday, has repeatedly gone on record defending Brazil’s farmers against those trying to protect the forest. He has been especially critical of the commitment by Brazilian governments to set aside in perpetuity vast areas of the forest for indigenous people, protected from the threat of logging and mining.
‘‘If I get to the presidency not a single square centimetre will be demarcated as indigenous land,’’ he said during a speech in the agricultural state of Mato Grosso last year.
More than one million square kilometres – 12 per cent of Brazil’s total land mass – is assigned as territory for the 900,000 Brazilians of indigenous descent; a tiny minority in a nation of 211 million people. That provision, part of the ‘‘forest code’’, has been established in law and would be complex to reverse. But that has not deterred Bolsonaro. ‘‘The most resource-rich territory in the world is currently protected as indigenous land,’’ he said. ‘‘We need to change that’’.
He has also expressed extreme scepticism that indigenous people would actually choose to live as they have for centuries in one of the most unspoilt regions of the planet. They want ‘‘electricity, television, blonde girlfriends and internet’’, he has said.
He accused environmentalist charities and non-governmental organisations of sentimentalising the issue. ‘‘Our Indian has to live hidden on a piece of land as if he were a thing of nature, part of a zoo,’’ he said.
Paulo Adario, senior forest strategist for Greenpeace International, told The Times: ‘‘The mentality of someone like Bolsonaro is not just a threat to Brazil’s natural environment but the entire planet’s.
‘‘A guy like that who openly favours the agriculture industry is dangerous.’’
Bolsonaro is a strong proponent of arming private citizens; his solution to Brazil’s raging crime problem. He has promised to distribute shotguns to farmers to ‘‘defend themselves’’ against Jair Bolsonaro, far-right presidential candidate
occupation by the Landless Rural Workers Movement, a left-wing group which seeks access to land for poor workers.
Sometimes referred to as The Tropical Trump, Bolsonaro says he would seek to remove his country from the Paris climate change agreement, which it joined in 2016.
Brazil, which is by far the biggest economy – and polluter – in Latin America, has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions to about 40 per cent below its 2005 levels. Most of that would be achieved by reducing deforestation.
In recent decades, Brazil has made progress in reducing the rate at which the Amazon rain forest is shrinking. At its peak in 1995, 19,500 square kilometres – an area approximately the size of Wales – was being felled every year. Last year that was reduced to about 7,000 square kilometres
The latest poll shows Bolsonaro with a clear 11-point lead in the first round over his nearest rival, Fernando Haddad, the left-wing former mayor of Sao Paulo.
A run-off vote is expected to be held on October 28.
If it is between Bolsonaro and Haddad, the right-winger is narrowly ahead, according to the pollsters. – The Times