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News > Brazil

NGO: Amazon Critical, Bolsonaro Projects Threaten More Loss

  •  Aerial view of a tract of Amazon jungle recently cleared by loggers near Novo Progresso, Brazil, Sep. 22, 2013.

    Aerial view of a tract of Amazon jungle recently cleared by loggers near Novo Progresso, Brazil, Sep. 22, 2013. | Photo: Reuters FILE

Published 24 November 2018
Opinion

Several projects, proposed by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, threatens the protected Amazon forests and peoples, who are already severely neglected.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by 13.7 percent between August 2017 and July 2018. In that period, 7,900 square kilometers of forest or 1,185 million trees disappeared, according to statistics from Brasil's Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). 

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In relation to the finding, the international environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace stated that that entire area is equivalent to the size of 987,500 football fields. Several projects, proposed by the country's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, threatens to further deplete the protected Amazon forests and the peoples, who are exploited and neglected, according to the NGO's report. 

"The forecasts for the Amazon are not good. Everything that worked in the fight against forest destruction is being threatened" Marcio Astrini, Greenpeace's public policy coordinator in Brazil, said.

"African palm, the new threat to the Amazon forests."

The Bolsonaro-tipped projects are related to environmental licensing flexibilization, reduction of protected areas and the suspension of the demarcations of Indigenous lands, among other areas.

"This set of proposals benefits those who live to deforest the forest, to illegally seize lands, and to steal Brazilian's natural heritage," Astrini explained.

The Brazilian president-elect's intentions are to offer up Indigenous lands and conservation areas for commercial purposes, according to the NGO spokesman, which would lead to an "explosion of violence in the countryside and will put at risk the climatic hope of the planet."

Currently, about 13 percent of Brazilian territory is assigned to some 600 Indigenous reserves. However, many areas claimed by different tribes are still waiting to be legally delimited.

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