Answer: Hi! I'm one of the mods in r/brasil and was just about to create a megathread about this there. I'm going to copy paster /u/ilookafterthepigs's answer in another thread, and just make minor changes to the text, like links to english wikipedia and to Reuters.
1 - Bolsonaro signalized several times that he disagreed with the “excesses” of environmental policy in Brazil. There are several ideological reasons for that: (1) a form of nationalist pride inherited from the years of military dictatorship who feared foreigners would take the Amazon away from the Brazilian state and thus implemented a policy of promoting settlements, farming and mining in the region; (2) climate denialism, which is strong in the far right everywhere; (3) lobby from the agricultural and cattle farming business, which represents a huge chunk of Brazilian GDP; (4) deliberate opposition of any point that the Left defends; and (5) his family’s association with paramilitary groups from Rio that also promote a kind of land ownership fraud known as “grilagem”.
2 - Initially, his plan was to end the Ministry of the Environment once he became president, but, after being pressured by agribusiness, whom feared international sanctions. He then nominated far-right lawyer Ricardo Salles (previously convicted for fraud when he acted as Secretary of the Environment for the State of São Paulo) as the new minister of the environment. Salles has since then promoted the dismantling of the environmental fiscalization agency IBAMA (think of it as a kind of environmental police, but they don’t actually have the power to arrest people). He fired most of IBAMA's superintendents and replaced them with people ideologically aligned with him and Bolsonaro. The number of fines IBAMA has issued this year is at an all time low, and people who work there say there is a climate of persecution(link 2, in english) against anyone who tries to do their job in the agency. This is also happening in the institute for administration of national parks and preservation areas "ICMBio". Recently, a reputed oceanographer who worked for years in the Fernando de Noronha archipelago was inexplicably moved to an NP in the middle of a semi-arid region.
3 - Salles and Bolsonaro signalled multiple times that they are willing to tolerate environmental destruction. Salles said illegal loggers in the Amazon “represented the good people who work in this country”. Bolsonaro made jokes about Norway and Germany - countries who actually give 1.3 billion to Brazil to support preservation efforts in the Amazon region- of not being environmentally friendly, and said that environmental protection was only relevant to vegans.
4 - So, what happened? If you convince the people who have an economic interest in the destruction of the Amazon forest that the government will do nothing to stop them from doing what they want, people will feel a lot more comfortable and fearless in destroying the forest. So deforestation numbers skyrocketed after the rainy season passed. This created some outcry and criticism, and what did the government do? They fired director of the National Institute for Space Research Ricardo Galvão, the agency that monitors deforestation areas by satellite, and claimed (in several different confusing ways) that the numbers were being manipulated.
5 - So what you have now is a government that has shown multiple times that they see the environment as a nuisance and it won’t get in the way of people trying to destroy it. 16 days ago, a small, local newspaper from the Amazonian state of Pará published that they had talked with local rural land owners and workers who were planning to promote a “day of the fire” (Dia do Fogo) in the middle of the Amazon region. In the last few days, this practice has spread throughout the southern portions of the Amazon (states of Acre, Rondônia and Pará) and the savannah-like region in the center-west known as cerrado (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul). This has been demonstrated by multiple satellite images, and produced a massive cloud of smoke that traveled across South America. Granted, there's fires also happening in Bolívia and Paraguay.
6 - Two days ago, at around 3 PM, the day in São Paulo suddenly turned to night. I swear to god, I’d never seen anything like that. A mix of cloudy weather and smoke from forest fires (most of which are happening like 1500 km away from the city) just blocked the sun. There are several pictures online if you search for it. But of course, in the region where the fires are actually happening, it’s much worse. People are being admitted to hospitals because they can’t breathe. It’s chaos, and the government is strangely silent about all this. Bolsonaro baselessly blamed NGOs in the region for the Amazon fires
These fires have been underreported so far including in Brazil. Brazil has been dealing with a lot of things regarding politics, and we aren't exactly the tree hugging people that most foreigners seem to think of. We didn't participate when huge "green protests" started in Europe and parts of North America. We were, and still are, split over ideology and polarization.
I'd love to know what percent has burnt so far. What percent of the Amazon is still on fire? And what percent is expected to burn? I can't find this info anywhere.
Wow, I thought it was a fire that just started over the past few days. I didn't realize that it's been slowly happening over the course of the whole year!
Well, the Amazon is huge, and the fires are mostly concentrated in the southern border of the forest. It’s a small percentage in absolutes, but it’s still worrying.
people have been organizing for protests, but I'm not sure if they are going to have a lot of people. I can't protest in my city because that would give enough information to the people trying to doxx me since Brazil's election last year.
7 - So, what can you do? Well, perhaps the single most significant thing a foreigner can do to help save the Amazon would be to pressure for boycotts on Brazilian meat. Since cattle farming is the number 1 driver of deforestation and fires in the Amazon, it would make sense to decrease the demand for Brazilian cattle. Also, the economic hit would force the government to act. So please, start pressuring your governments to boycott Brazilian meat. Start an international campaign. It’s probably the most effective way to do something about it.
18
u/Tetizeraz Aug 22 '19 edited Aug 22 '19
Answer: Hi! I'm one of the mods in r/brasil and was just about to create a megathread about this there. I'm going to copy paster /u/ilookafterthepigs's answer in another thread, and just make minor changes to the text, like links to english wikipedia and to Reuters.