this Amazon consumed In the midst of the election, where the environmental issue is at the center, the rejection of the administration of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, accusations about what is going on in the so-called lung of the planet are simply “to scare investment”.
In fact, the retired captain launched an invitation to entrepreneurs in 2019 to expand the boundaries of business. More than 10,129 square kilometers were deforested that year. A year later there were 10,851. Another 13,038 people disappeared in 2021.
Worst fires in 10 years
There is a lot of smoke in the background of the election campaign: The fires in the Amazon rainforest in September were the worst in a decade. The fire reaches its greatest burning point when the rains subside and agricultural entrepreneurs throw themselves into the water. deforestation race. The National Space Exploration Agency (INPE) reported last month 36,850 alerts. This was a 120% jump from September 2021. If we don’t count what happened in September, total epidemic was 82,872exceeds 75,090 recorded in the previous year.
Fire is one of the metaphors of what happened in the Amazon. “They are not a natural phenomenon. It’s about the burns human activitiesLevels of degradation that often make it illegal and more susceptible to fire,” says Mariana Napolitano, scientific director of WWF-Brazil. According to ecologist and geographer Carlos Durigan, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), “we one small step from the point of no return and to see Amazon cease to be what it has always been”. Durigan talks about “the destruction of the Amazon and its biodiversity in real time.”
More droughts and fires
“Brazil is the country that owns the largest portion of the Amazon and does the least to protect it,” forest engineer Marlene Quintanilla told the Public Agency. “The Brazilian Amazon already has a 25% conversion level and a 9% degradation level. Mainly in the southeastern part (north of Mato Grosso and south of Pará state), people are already feeling the changes: more drought and fire, less water and a lot transformations in ecosystems. Researchers at the Amazon Georeferenced Socio-environmental Information Network (RAISG), of which Quintanilla is a member, warn of the danger of an irreversible situation.
Every Amazon state experiences election conflict with similar intensity. As in other parts of Brazil, there are climate change deniers, like Bolsonaro, who believe that accusations about what’s going on in the jungle are “nonsense”. The state of Rondônia, with 49% of its territory covered with forests, will be contested by Marcos Rocha (UB) seeking reelection and Bolsonarist senator Marcos Rogeria. Both are like drops of water when it comes to the environment. “The scenario is very serious. We’re seeing how all of our riverside forests are destroyed and not rebuilt. In other words, there will be water shortages and it won’t take long to come,” said physicist Artur Moret.
Get ahead of the original peoples
In this context, it is the indigenous peoples who have decided to move forward with unprecedented strength. For the first time in Brazil’s electoral history 182 indigenous candidates in different Amazon states. This total 84 women They try to move the discussions to different legislative spaces. “As we feel threatened, we need to create more means of defense,” said Keyla de Jesús, one of the leaders of the Pataxó tribe.
Nearly half of the nominees belong to the Legal Amazon, which, like never before, brings together not only deforestation but also the basin’s nine states. criminal activities related mining and fishingjust like him timber traffic and drug trafficking raid. According to data from NGO Mapbiomas, “garimpo”, known as illegal mining, has wreaked havoc from 99,000 hectares to 196,000 between 2010 and 2021.