Amazon is being destroyed in Bolsonaro era

President Bolsonaro, a far-right leader presented himself as the opposite pole of the leftist Worker’s party during his election campaign. The Workers party assured the development of poor and disenfranchised people of Brazil. In the regime of Bolsonaro, the basic rights of aboriginal inhabitants are violated. He has triggered fears that rates of deforestation in the Amazon will expand.

The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and the largest river basin on the earth. More species are found here than anywhere on the planet and many still being discovered by scientists. This forest helps to absorb the excess of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and produces 20% of the world’s oxygen and is known as ‘the lungs of the earth. The Amazon plays a very crucial part in regional water supply and global climate control. Its global importance is well explicable to us.
About 60% of the original Amazon rainforest has been located in Brazil. The statistical report of the rainforest is quite terrible. The country is responsible for half of the total deforestation in the Amazon. Its actual destruction is worse than the government data shows according to the leading environmental agencies. The deforestation of the Amazon is not a new issue, it is happening from decades due to cattle ranching, logging, gold mining, agro-business and oil drilling. But president Bolsonaro is a major threat to this rainforest.

The conservative president Bolsonaro broadened the path of deforestation with government’s ruinous policy. In his recent brief speech at the World Economic Forum, he signalled directly about his pro-business agenda and alarmed environmental activists. Actually, he was totally supported by agro-business lobby before the election. During his 2018 election campaign, he promised to decrease the rate of fine and loose the restrictions on environmental issues of the Amazon.  Besides, he has compared indigenous people living in protected areas to animals in zoos. Recently he transferred protected lands of aboriginals to the ministry of agriculture. In future, certified communities of the protected lands will not be able to access the rainforest to fulfil their basic needs. Moreover, he appointed Tereza Cristine as the new agriculture minister. In June, she presided over the committee that intentionally passed a bill to smooth the approvals of new agrotoxicos, the chemical pesticides but that pose serious threats to the environment and human health. She has also questionable connections with JBS, a meat processing company linking with corruption.

It is not difficult to say that the commercialisation of every sector like agriculture and cattle will drastically increase backed by the Bolsonaro government. The insanity of the neoliberal economy leads towards a terrific situation on the sphere of nature. The only motif of capitalists is to gain profits from nature.  The environment is someone else’s problem.

Abu sufian Mondal, currently pursuing my BA Comparative Literature degree from Jadavpur University. Get in touch- [email protected]


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