Brazil on Monday rejected aid from G7 countries to fight wildfires in the Amazon, with a top official telling French President Emmanuel Macron to take care of “his home and his colonies.”
Nearly 80,000 forest fires have broken out in Brazil since the beginning of the year — just over half of them in the massive Amazon basin that regulates part of Earth’s carbon cycle and climate.
G7 countries made the US$20 million aid offer to fight the blazes at the Biarritz summit hosted by Macron, who insisted they should be discussed as a top priority.
Photo: AFP
“We appreciate [the offer], but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni, chief of staff to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, told the G1 news Web site.
“Macron cannot even avoid a foreseeable fire in a church that is a world heritage site,” he added, referring to the fire in April that devastated the Notre-Dame cathedral. “What does he intend to teach our country?”
Brazilian Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles had earlier told reporters they had welcomed the G7 funding to fight the fires that have swept across 950,000 hectares and prompted the deployment of the army.
However, after a meeting between Bolsonaro and his ministers, the government changed course.
“Brazil is a democratic, free nation that never had colonialist and imperialist practices, as perhaps is the objective of the Frenchman Macron,” Lorenzoni said.
Although about 60 percent of the Amazon is in Brazil, the vast forest also spreads over parts of eight other countries or territories, including the French overseas territory of Guiana.
Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, which monitors deforestation, has recorded that the number of fires has risen by 85 percent to more than 77,000 in the last year, a record since the institute began keeping track in 2013.
About half of the fires have been in the Amazon region, with many in just the past month.
Bolsonaro said he might visit the Amazon region this week to check on firefighting efforts and would make 44,000 troops available to fight the blazes.
However, the military presence in the area seemed scarce on Monday, with only a few soldiers seen patrolling roads and lending a hand.
Brazilian Army Major Fabio da Paixao Pinheiro said officials have determined that the fires around the Rondonia state capital of Porto Velho have decreased as a result of rains over the last couple of days.
However, experts yesterday said that weak rainfall is unlikely to extinguish the record number of fires anytime soon, with pockets of precipitation through Sept. 10 expected to bring only isolated relief.
The rain forecast in the next 15 days is concentrated in areas that need it least, said Maria Silva Dias, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Sao Paulo.
Less precipitation is expected in parts of the Amazon experiencing the worst fires, and even areas with more rain will only get isolated showers, she said.
“In some points you could put out some fires, certainly, but these are isolated points, it’s not the whole area,” Dias said. “The whole area needs it to rain more regularly, and this will only happen further down the line, around October.”
The 15-day rain forecast is at or below the average for this period in previous year, Brazil weather information firm Climatemp said.
Additional reporting by AP and Reuters
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