Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday said his country has “no need” for German aid targeted at helping protect the Amazonian forest, after Berlin said it would suspend some payments because of surging deforestation.
Brazil is home to a lot more than 60 percent from the Amazon forest, that is being cleared in an increasing rate to create more cropland.
The Amazon is vital towards the exchange of oxygen for co2 within the atmosphere – a check on climatic change – but worry about the forest is continuing to grow since Bolsonaro took office in January.
“They are able to make use of this money because they think fit. Brazil doesn’t need it,” Bolsonaro, a far-right populist, told journalists in Brasilia.
His comments came after Germany on Saturday said hello would block payment of EUR35 million ($40 million) to Brazil for forest conservation and biodiversity programs until the Amazon’s rate of decline attained encouraging levels once again.
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said that roughly 2,254 square kilometres from the Amazon were cleared in July, an increase of 278% from the year earlier.
“Brazilian government policies in the Amazon raise doubts about continued, sustained declines in the rate of deforestation,” German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze told the tv news show Tagesspiegel.
From 2008 until this season, Berlin paid 95 million euros in support of various environmental protection programs in Brazil.
Germany nonetheless intends to continue supporting the Amazon Fund, a forest preservation initiative made in 2008.
Norway, that has contributed the most to the fund, has threatened to withdraw, and said last year that payments to Brazil would be cut in half and might be eliminated altogether.
Asked Sunday by a reporter about Brazil’s image abroad, Bolsonaro replied with another provocation.
“You believe the large countries are interested in Brazil’s image, or do they wish to appropriate Brazil?” he explained.
A week prior to the INPE numbers were released, the institute’s chief Ricardo Galvao was fired, and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles charged that INPE published its data in a way that satisfied “sensationalist interpretations” aimed at getting “more donations from foreign NGOs”.
Bolsonaro continues to be accused of favoring his supporters within the logging, mining and farming sectors. He has pledged to permit more farming and signing in the Amazon, and also to grant more licenses towards the mining industry.
