Amazon fires: Prez offers to probe; minister heckled
SAO PAULO: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday his government lacks the resources to fight wildfires in the Amazon rainforest after satellite images showed a record number of burning spots this year.
In a speech broadcast live on Facebook, he said the government is investigating the fires. He denied claiming that non-governmental organisations were starting fires in the forest, saying he was only talking of his suspicions. The comments came in the wake of a social media storm after he said “criminal action by those NGOs, to call attention against me, against the Brazilian government” following funding cuts may be the reason for the forest fires.
“The fires were lit in strategic places. All the indications suggest they went there to film and start fires. That’s what I feel,” he had told reporters on Wednesday.
The debate on the fires is raging even as Brazil is hosting a UN regional meeting on climate change in the northeastern city of Salvador ahead of December’s summit in Chile. The 25th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP25) was originally planned for Brazil, but the country pulled out, citing impossible objectives.
At the Salvador meeting, climate activists held a protest, denouncing Bolsonaro’s latest accusation as “absurd”.
Environment minister Ricardo Salles was heckled and booed as he stepped on to the podium during one of the events at the meeting on Wednesday. They shouted “the Amazon region is burning”. The minister defended the government’s efforts to prevent illegal deforestation. “All the rules on illegal deforestation have been upheld, all strategies have continued to be enforced,” Salles said.