A recent UN report
has confirmed many of our worst fears concerning the effect that human activity
is having on the natural world. A tenfold increase in plastic pollution since
1980. A doubling of greenhouse gas emissions in the same period. 1 million new
species at risk of extinction. More than a third of the world’s land surface
and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock
production.
We are no longer blind to the effect we are having on our planet.
The global climate strike movement, led by the inspirational Greta Thunberg, has resulted in an
increased pressure on governments across the world to take measures to meet
climate targets, and connected disparate climate activists and ordinary
citizens in a way previously unseen. But as international attention turns
towards finding solutions to this crisis, the fate of one of the planet’s largest
and most precious natural resources grows increasingly precarious.
A few days before the release of the UN paper, Amnesty
International reported on an imminent risk of violent clashes with Indigenous
people in the Brazilian Amazon unless illegal logging and land seizures are curtailed
in the area. The Amazon, home to 10% of the world’s
wildlife species, is at greater risk of the effects of land degradation and
climate change than almost anywhere else in the world, and little is being done
to protect it. About 3,050 square miles
of the world's largest rainforest was destroyed between August 2017 and July
2018 – an area roughly equivalent to five times the size of London – mostly
due to illegal logging.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who now controls the 60%
of the Amazon which falls into Brazilian territory, is no friend to the climate
activist movement. Rising to power on a platform supported by what he refers to
as the “Three
Bs” – beef, bullets, and bibles, representing his base of supporters in the
agribusiness industry, military, and religious right – Bolsonaro quickly moved
to position himself as a pro-business leader. In
a Tweet shortly after his inauguration he stated that “More than 15% of
national territory is demarcated as indigenous land... Less than a million
people live in these places, isolated
from true Brazil, exploited and manipulated by NGOs. Together we will
integrate these citizens” [emphasis my own]. In doing so, he not only aligned
himself with the agribusiness industry but very firmly in opposition to the Indigenous
people of the Amazon. The suggestion that such groups are not a part of “true
Brazil” demonstrates a political stance based on identity politics set to
divide the urban majority from the Indigenous tribal population.
Bolsonaro’s attitudes towards Brazil’s Indigenous peoples
are well documented. In a 1998
interview he compared the Brazilian situation with that of the United
States, saying “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as
efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians”. His attitude did not
become more conciliatory as he began his assent to power in Brazil. In 2015, he
stated
in an interview with Campo Grande News “There is no indigenous territory
where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands,
especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into
this nonsense of defending land for Indians”.
Such rhetoric empowers agribusiness to take more extreme
action in achieving its goals. As Amnesty
describes, Indigenous leaders have reported receiving death threats for
defending their land from developers. One incident noted in the report is as
follows: “Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people told Amnesty International that on 11 January
2019 they confronted about 40 invaders, who were armed with sickles and
machetes, cutting a path into their territory... When told to leave, the
intruders allegedly replied that more intruders would be coming and threatened
to kill the Indigenous children.” In April, the intruders returned, this time
with numbers estimated at around 500 people. The Indigenous groups no longer
feel they can rely on the government to protect them from illegal loggers, as Bolsonaro
has promised to allow continued exploitation of lands near their homes and
to rollback Indigenous rights.
This is a two-pronged attack on the lands of the Brazilian Amazon,
against its wildlife and resources through the loosening of regulations around agribusiness
and against its people through an increasingly toxic discourse aimed at turning
public sentiment against them. As some environmentalists have noted, thanks to
the coalition government in Brazil it is unlikely that Bolsonaro will be able
to convert all of his campaign promises into policy, but the language he uses
to attack Indigenous people only serves to embolden the illegal loggers that
threaten their homes, who now have ever-less reason to fear reprisals.
If Bolsonaro cannot enact his deforestation policies
himself, it seems he will simply turn his back while the Amazon burns.
In another territory, a 26-year-old Karipuna man told
Amnesty “If government doesn’t act, we might lose our territory, it might be
the end of the Karipuna. I don’t know if there are new paths, because we don’t
patrol so often to avoid contact with intruders. They are armed with guns.”
This is an attack on a civilian population who are now
afraid to stay in their own homes.
But this is also an attack on all of us.
The Amazon is one the great wonders of the world. It is home
to over a million Indigenous people who just want to live. It is home to 10% of
the world’s biodiversity. Its 5.5 million square mile landmass absorbs a
massive amount of global CO2 emissions, helping reduce the effects of climate
change.
It must be protected.
See what can be done
to protect the Amazon here. Find
out more about the ongoing global climate strikes here.
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