BURNING ANGER
Leo’s fight to save Amazon riles Brazil prez
Brazil’s president is taking a flamethrower to Leonardo DiCaprio.
In a scapegoating speech Friday, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro made the preposterous suggestion the “Once Upon a Time In Hollywood” star actually helped fuel recent Amazon rainforest fires with his charity work.
“DiCaprio is a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money to set the Amazon on fire,” the climate-change denier told his supporters.
DiCaprio apparently sparked Bolsonaro’s ire after his environmental organization Earth Alliance pledged $5 million to help protect the Amazon amid the devastating fires that destroyed large swaths in July and August.
The president floated his absurd assertion in connection with a police raid at the headquarters of two nonprofit groups in the Amazonian state of Para.
Several volunteer firefighters were arrested and later released.
Local police say the volunteers are under investigation for allegedly igniting fires to obtain funding from nonprofits. The firefighters deny any wrongdoing.
Federal prosecutors and environmental leaders, meanwhile, say evidence points to local land-grabbers as the primary suspects.
The ecological disaster has become a political black eye for Bolsonaro, leading to calls for a boycott of Brazilian products and a curbing of international trade deals.
A former army captain, Bolsonaro took office in January amid pledges to make it easier for power and agriculture interests to gain new inroads in the Amazon.
His administration has opposed strong environmental protections and has presided over an increase in deforestation.
Bolsonaro, 64, has famously claimed indigenous groups control an unreasonable amount of the county’s valuable resources.
Attempts to reach spokespeople for DiCaprio and Earth Alliance were not successful Friday.
Ecological arson used to clear land mostly for agricultural use remains a serious problem in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest.
It raised international alarm bells over the summer when 30,900 fires were spotted by satellite in the Amazon during August alone, compared to 10,400 fires detected during August 2018, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
Some 10,300 fires have been detected so far this month, mostly in the state of Para, the institute reported.
The Amazon’s lush forests are a critical component of the Earth’s climate system. They’re often called the planet’s “lungs” or “sink” because they clean carbon dioxide from the air, storing it away so it doesn’t contribute to global warming.