Amazon Rainforest Fires: Here’s What’s Really Happening

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today: More than 26,000 fires have been recorded inside the Amazon rainforest in August alone, triggering global calls for action. So why is Brazil’s government telling the rest of the world to mind its own business?

It’s Wednesday, August 28.

Through the prism of Twitter or Facebook, I think a lot of people last week, understandably, engaged in this communal panic about the fate of the world’s largest rainforest.

Ernesto Londoño covers Brazil for The Times.

You were seeing presidents, you were seeing celebrities.

You were seeing these really alarming posts and these photographs of patches of the rainforest on fire.

And I think many people, understandably, were left with the impression that, within a few days, the Amazon was going to be reduced to a pile of ashes.

I think, in many people’s minds, there was a clear villain in all of this —

— the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who has shifted his government’s approach on the environment in a really dramatic way.

And this is certainly a story about climate change. And it’s a story about President Bolsonaro. But it’s a far more complicated story than we’ve been hearing.

So where should we start this story?

I mean, I think it’s important to think about the history of the Amazon.

I think for decades, the Amazon captured people’s imagination in a way that few places on Earth did.

It was this mysterious and dangerous place that drew adventurers and scientists and botanists.

And you know, for many, many years, it was these images of this raw wildlife and the mystique that laid under the canopy that people were fascinated by.

It contains the largest supply of freshwater in the world, and it’s just teeming with biodiversity.

But in the 1970s, the Brazilian government, which was then led by military rulers, decided it was time to settle this vast rainforest.

And it created a road that cut through the Amazon and started encouraging people to move there and to start making a living there.

Their view was that the Amazon contained tons of resources — minerals, land that could be converted into farmland — and that it was time to turn it into an economic engine for Brazil.

When it starts happening initially, people realize that things are changing. But there was no real alarm until a few years later, when things get really out of control.

Where trees start getting chopped down at a really staggering rate —

— and people start realizing that the world’s largest rainforest is being destroyed, is atrophying at an astonishing speed.

This sparks worldwide consternation. And people start asking whether the Amazon might cease to exist one day if it continues to be destroyed at this rate.

You know, you had politicians, you had artists, you had songs about this.

It really became a cultural moment.

People became very invested in this idea that everybody had a role to play in saving the Amazon.

Right. This is the “Save the Rainforest” campaign.

Yeah.

And does this movement have an effect in Brazil?

It does. But I think it’s important to note that it is greeted with very deep skepticism and, to an extent, paranoia, in some circles. I think there’s long been a view among conservative nationalist Brazilians that all this outcry about the fate of the rainforest was really a veiled attempt to keep Brazil from developing its God-given potential. I think many Brazilians saw these calls to preserve the Amazon as infringing its sovereignty. And for many years, they were pretty dismissive about this. And they said that the fate of the Amazon was only for Brazil and its neighbors to think about, debate about, and decide on.

Hmm. So what happens to this development of the Amazon?

During the 1990s and the early 2000s, we see deforestation reaching really staggering levels. Concern around the world, I think, reaches a point where the Brazilians can no longer ignore what people outside of the country were saying about this. So when President Lula, a leftist, is in office in the early 2000s, he appoints a woman who was from the rainforest to serve as his minister of the environment. Her name is Marina Silva. And she came up with a really bold and ambitious plan to rein in deforestation and create more conservation areas. She was somebody who was lauded across the world for doing something that people thought was almost impossible, to stop these loggers and these miners and these farmers from reaching deeper and deeper into the Amazon year after year after year. And for a while, Brazil was pretty successful.

So all of this outcry leads Brazil to begin regulating and slowing this development.

That’s right. Another thing the government did was it started issuing some pretty stiff fines for deforestation and other environmental crimes. And for a while, this had the intended effect. And one of the reasons Brazil was successful in reining in deforestation during this era is the economy was doing pretty well. So there were plenty of jobs in the city. And people were less tempted to venture deep into the jungle, where they faced the risk of fines. However, the good days came to an end. And in 2014, the country plunged into a brutal recession. And what this meant was tens of thousands of men were suddenly unemployed. And many of them were lured back into the jungle. Why? Because there was money to be made. These were dangerous jobs. These were risky ventures. But for many people, it was the only way to put food on the table.

And so the deforestation started all over again?

Deforestation starts climbing again.

We’ll be right back.

Ernesto, so, a recession hits and deforestation is back on the rise. What does this mean for Brazilians?

So around this time, many people who were being fined for violating environmental laws were refusing to pay and sensed that they could get away with it. And among them was a then-congressman, Jair Bolsonaro, who was allegedly busted fishing in a wildlife reserve. He refused to identify himself when the agents saw him. But the agent recognized him, took his picture, documented that he was in a wildlife reserve, and issued him a citation. Bolsonaro never bothered to pay his fine. And then, last year, when he’s running for president and when he becomes a front-runner, Mr. Bolsonaro said that the fines that were issued by this agency amounted to a racket. He called it an industry that needed to be shut down.

So Bolsonaro, when he campaigns for president, does so by kind of flagrantly disregarding the environmental protections of the Amazon, and, it seems like, by tapping into this longstanding nationalist view that the Amazon is a Brazilian resource that Brazilians should be tapping into, and any effort to stop that is a globalist intervention, and it will hurt Brazil.

That’s right, Michael. But he wasn’t only angry about environmental fines. He was also very frustrated with indigenous territories. These are territories that now cover about 13 percent of Brazil’s land mass. And Mr. Bolsonaro spoke in unusually hostile terms about indigenous people. He essentially said, you have these small indigenous communities sitting on land that could be extremely profitable. And they should be allowed to bring in outsiders to set up mining camps, to develop farmland, to start producing wealth.

And so his solution, it sounds like, is to develop more and more of the Amazon.

Absolutely. And when he wins, he wastes no time on delivering on his campaign promises on this front. One of his first steps in office was to give the ministry of agriculture control over the process of adjudicating any new indigenous territories. It was essentially giving the people who had an interest in developing these territories and changing their nature entirely the keys to the kingdom. You know? Environmentalists and indigenous activists were appalled. And they braced for a bruising fight.

So what happens when Bolsonaro starts making these changes across the government and allowing for more development of the Amazon?

Well, even before any new laws or regulations came to fruition, I think people out in the countryside felt emboldened. And we started hearing anecdotes of miners and of loggers striding into indigenous territories and other protected areas in a way that was more visible and bolder than they had before. What we also see is a sharp rise in deforestation. During the first six months of the Bolsonaro era, deforestation increased by roughly 40 percent. And historically, the rate of deforestation has been closely linked to the prevalence of forest fires.

Right. So this is what we’re seeing in all these photos online. The Amazon is on fire. And it’s rampant deforestation under Bolsonaro that has caused it.

That’s right. And there were, literally, thousands of fires burning across the Amazon. But I think what many people didn’t quite understand was that this happens every year. Around this time, when it tends to be cooler and drier across the Amazon, there’s a slash-and-burn cycle that happens, where farmers and people who have logged patches of the Amazon clear the bush and set it on fire. And most of these fires tend to be relatively small and relatively contained. But something was different this year. The number was unusually high. So far this month, there’s been more than 26,000 fires detected through satellite imagery. That’s more than twice the number of fires registered last year. But this was, by no means, an all-time high. You know, we’ve seen other periods in years past when there were far more fires burning across the Amazon. I think what was different this year is you had all these alarming and widely shared posts on social media, some of which were using pictures that were many, many years old that weren’t really an accurate reflection of what was happening on the ground this year.

So what do you make of that, this response, which has been so enormous, and the history and reality of this situation in Brazil?

Clearly, it has put a spotlight on a problem that is very real and very serious. The Amazon is shrinking at a rate that many scientists call unsustainable. They fear that it’s approaching a so-called tipping point, where large sections turn into savanna and where it might be impossible to turn it back into lush, thick rainforest. However, I think the way this story got off the ground may have been counterproductive for the international community to engage the Brazilian government and its very impulsive leader in a constructive debate.

Brazil, last week, faced the prospect that a trade deal that Brazil and a few neighboring countries reached with the European Union could be nixed.

There were calls to boycott Brazilian products.

And the G7 leaders, who were about to have their conference in France, said that this was going to be a last-minute high-profile item added to the agenda. Brazil, I think understandably, said, wait a minute. How are you going to discuss the fate of the Amazon when we’re not at the table? This makes no sense.

And even as pledges of emergency aid started being dangled by European leaders and by organizations that wanted to take some immediate and urgent action on these fires, the Brazilian government wasn’t ready to say, sure, we’ll take the help.

So all this outrage, all these online photos, all these alarmed messages, and this sense from Europe that this is a crisis that it can help solve, how is that looking and feeling to people inside Brazil?

I think many Brazilians are deeply concerned about the fate of the Amazon. And they very much want their country to do more to rein in deforestation and to pay attention to the messages that we’re hearing from across the world. However, this is a very bitterly polarized society. And on the flip side of that, I think many people resent the idea that European powers would bark down orders to a former colony and tell it how it needs to administer its affairs. And that’s certainly the approach the president has taken. He recently said that if the Europeans had many million dollars to spend on conservation efforts, that they should plant some trees in their own countries.

So in Bolsonaro’s mind, this is a Brazilian issue, and the rest of the world should, essentially, mind its own business.

Absolutely. He says the Amazon is ours, and we’re not going to entertain criticism or prescriptions from countries that, many years ago, razed down their own forests and grew their economies in doing so. So that’s been his position, and it’s hard to see him backing down.

It’s interesting, Ernesto. As we’re talking about this, I’m realizing that as horrifying as the development of the rainforest might feel to people watching from the outside, and as scary as these fires are, it does seem unusual for other countries to tell a country what it can and can’t do with its resources. If the U.S., theoretically, wants to blow up the Grand Canyon or log entire national parks, those might be insane ideas. But no one can stop the United States from doing that. If we want to frack in West Virginia, it’s up to us. It’s our land.

Absolutely. Many Brazilians say, hey, this is our territory. This is our land. Don’t mess with our sovereignty. But on the other hand, the Amazon is a unique and special and irreplaceable place. And if we contemplate the possibility that some 50 years from now it will disappear or become a fraction of itself, the consequences are very significant.

The Amazon is a repository of carbon. So if it vanishes, there will be lots of carbon that will be released back into the atmosphere, which will warm the planet. And if, as the rainforest diminishes, more of its land becomes cattle-grazing pastures, that also would contribute to warming, because cattle grazing is one of the top emitters of greenhouse gas.

And so the rest of the world does have a stake in this fight.

Absolutely. I think right now, the Brazilian government is in no mood to open the door for this debate and to have a global discussion about the fate of the Amazon. But it’s facing the real possibility of a boycott of its products, which people have been warning about on social media, and of a core trade deal that may now be on thin ice. And if we see this debate going on for months, Brazil might be forced to come to the negotiating table and have this moment of reckoning with others across the world.

Ernesto, thank you very much.

My pleasure, Michael.

On Tuesday, after initially rejecting $22 million in aid from the countries of the G7 to fight the fires in the Amazon, Brazil’s government said it might accept the aid under certain conditions. President Bolsonaro said he would take the money if France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, apologized for remarks about Brazil and its environmental record that Bolsonaro said he found offensive.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

During an emotional hearing in Manhattan on Wednesday, more than a dozen victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse told their stories to a federal judge and assailed a criminal justice system that they said had failed them.

The hearing was held to officially dismiss the charges against Epstein following his suicide, which leaves prosecutors with no defendant to try. But it gave his accusers a rare chance to speak out. Several of the women in the courtroom addressed their remarks to the prosecutors, urging them to keep investigating Epstein’s employees and associates, who they said acted as his accomplices.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.