G7 leaders unite over efforts to extinguish Brazil's burning Amazon, where over 41,000 fires rage
"White House officials blindsided by Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif's G-7 appearance"
The Amazon is about one-half the size of Europe. It supplies about 20% of earth's oxygen and absorbs about 25% of global emissions. On entering office Bolsonaro vowed to put the economy above everything else.
Brazil's satellite monitoring agency has recorded more than 41,000 fires in the Amazon region so far this year, with more than half of those coming this month alone.
Photo: Satellite images show red pinpricks of fire across the vast Amazon region. (NASA)
The same monitoring agency has reported a sharp increase in deforestation this year as well.
Experts say most of the fires are set by farmers or ranchers clearing existing farmland.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country and others would talk with Brazil about reforestation in the Amazon once the fires had been extinguished.
"Of course [this is] Brazilian territory, but we have a question here of the rainforests that is really a global question," she said.
"The lung of our whole Earth is affected, and so we must find common solutions."
Pope Francis also added his voice to the chorus of concern, urging people to pray so that "they are controlled as quickly as possible."
He told a crowd in St Peter's Square that "we're all worried" about the Amazon fires, and said that the green "lung of forest is vital for our planet."
Photo: French President Emmanuel Macron, centre left, said the G7 was nearing an agreement on how to help Brazil. (AP: Andrew Harnik)
Farmers reportedly organised a 'day of fire'
On Sunday, Brazil's federal police agency said it would investigate reports that farmers in the state of Para, one of those most affected by the blazes, had called for "a day of fire" to ignite fires August 10.
-- Podcast - The Signal Why the Amazon is burning The world's largest tropical rainforest is alight and it's so bad environmentalists are concerned it could change important rainfall patterns. So who started the fires? And how will they affect the rest of us? --
Local news media said the group organised over WhatsApp to show support for Mr Bolsonaro's efforts to loosen environmental regulations.
Justice Minister Sergio Moro, who oversees the police, tweeted that the President "asked for a rigorous investigation" and said "the criminal fires will be severely punished."
People demonstrated in Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities demanding the Bolsonaro administration do more to protect the Amazon.
One boy in Rio held up a poster saying "Bol$onaro is burning our future," while people chanted:
"Bolsonaro out! Amazon stays!"
Photo: An area smoulders in the Alvorada da Amazonia region in Novo Progresso, Para state. (AP: Leo Correa)
Critics say Mr Bolsonaro's pro-development policies encourage farmers and ranchers to increase efforts to strip away the forest.
However, the President has issued repeated pledges recently to protect the area.
-- Why the Amazon is burning Record fires are raging in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. Here are five reasons why the world should care. EXCERPT: 3. What role politics has played P - Since 2014, the rate at which Brazil has lost Amazonian forest has grown by 60 per cent. This is the result of economic crises and the dismantling of Brazilian environmental regulation and ministerial authority since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. P - Mr Bolsonaro's political agenda includes controversial programs that critics claim will threaten both human rights and the environment. One of his first acts as President was to pass ministerial reforms that greatly weakened the Ministry of the Environment P - Regulations and programs for conservation and traditional communities' rights have been threatened by economic lobbying. P - Over the last months, Brazil's government has announced the reduction and extinction of environmental agencies and commissions, including the body responsible for combating deforestation and fires. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-24/amazon-fire-brazil-five-things-you-need-to-know/11444188 --
Ms Merkel noted that Mr Bolsonaro was putting "significant forces" into the effort to save the rainforest.
Mr Macron's office on Friday complained that the Brazilian leader "had lied to him" about environmental commitments.
Asked if he would speak with the French President, Mr Bolsonaro said: "If he calls me, I will answer. I am being extremely well-mannered with him even though he called me a liar".
Experts fear fires may turn Amazon into a savannah
Photo: The Amazon is home to some 3 million species of plants and animals. (Reuters: Ueslei Marcelino)
Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre said he worried that the Amazon could reach a tipping point if 20 to 25 per cent of the ecosystem was destroyed.
He said after that the area would enter a self-sustaining period of dieback as the forest converted to savannah.
Mr Nobre warned that the situation was not far off, with 15 to 17 per cent of the rainforest having already been destroyed.
Colombian President Ivan Duque said on Sunday he would seek a conservation pact with other Amazonian countries — first in bilateral meetings in Peru this week, and then at the United Nations General Assembly.
"Colombia wants to lead a pact, a conservation pact, between the countries that have Amazon territory," he said after meeting with an Indigenous community in the Amazonian city of Leticia in southern Colombia.
Photo: The Amazon is an area rich in biodiversity and is home for up to 500 indigenous South American tribes. (Flickr: Neil Palmer/CIAT)
"We must understand the protection of our mother earth and our Amazon is a duty, a moral duty."
The Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest and is seen as vital to the fight against climate change because of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide that it absorbs.
It provides 20 per cent of the planet's oxygen, is home to an estimated 1 million Indigenous people from up to 500 tribes, and provides a habitat for some 3 million species of plants and animals, including jaguars, sloths, giant otters, river dolphins, howler monkeys, toucans, reptiles, frogs and insects.
More lies Donald Trump's story on skipping the G7 climate meeting makes no sense
2011 - The last stand of the Amazon Novelist Edward Docx has spent almost a decade travelling to the Amazon, watching as multinational companies ravage the land he loves. Here is his heartfelt dispatch on the forest's final frontier – still home to as many as 100 tribes of uncontacted Indians The lost tribe: a long-range aerial photograph of uncontacted Indians living deep in the Amazon forest. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61662308 .. one of the seven replies .. Court Rules Against Indigenous Rights in Belo Monte Hearing Decision violates Brazil's Constitution and international human rights convention; appeal to Supreme Court expected [...]
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
