Amazon Fires in Brazil (comprehensive thread)

[TomSea]

Okay, whether the Amazon is actually the planet's lungs, here is an interesting story:

Despatch from Sao Paulo | International
How did the planet’s lungs catch fire?
Shobhan Saxena   August 31, 2019 21:15 IST   Updated: September 01, 2019 12:16 IS

In the first week of August, some messages began to circulate in a WhatsApp group comprising 70 ranchers, land-grabbers and illegal miners in Pará, a State located in the Amazon rainforest. In the messages, the group hatched a plan to start fires in the forest along a highway in the region on August 10. They designated it as the “Day of Fire”. As the fires lit by them began to sweep huge swathes of trees, the group shared another set of messages. These carried instructions on how to blame some NGOs for the blazes which were sending plumes of smoke up to Sao Paulo, some 3,000 km away. In a few days, countless fires — 26,000 as per some estimates — erupted across the Brazilian rainforest.

This brazen crime, exposed by the Globo Rural magazine on August 25,was committed for two objectives: grabbing of forest land and areas reserved for indigenous tribes; and to show their defiance to the Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA), which monitors the forests and fines those who violate environmental laws.

With the far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro, repeatedly talking of clipping the wings of IBAMA, the agency seems helpless.

Read more at: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/how-did-the-planets-lungs-catch-fire/article29309900.ece

The next paragraph reads these fires are not accidental or natural.

[Bigun]

About those fires;
Data on Amazon Rainforest Fires Tell a Much Different Story Than Social Media

Outrage has replaced reason in the debate surrounding biodiversity and poisoned the way we talk about workable solutions.

Thursday, September 5, 2019

[TomSea]

@Bigun

That was a great link. Thanks.

This story has somewhat died down... so will unsticky it. It's always floating around still... and can be restickied.

[TomSea]

Illegal miners, feeling betrayed, call on Bolsonaro to end environmental crackdown in Amazon
By Marina Lopes
September 10 at 4:20 PM

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A group of wildcat miners blocked a highway that cuts through the Amazon this week to protest a government crackdown on illegal mines, in the latest challenge to President Jair Bolsonaro amid growing international pressure to protect the rainforest.

Thousands of illegal miners operate in the Amazon, often digging up sparsely populated indigenous reserves and national parks for gold and diamonds.

Now the miners are demanding that Bolsonaro, who was elected on a promise to open up the Amazon for business, come to their defense. Environmental protection agents this week destroyed excavators and tractors found at an illegal mine in a national forest. Videos of the equipment on fire quickly spread across social media.

Read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/feeling-betrayed-brazils-wildcat-miners-call-on-bolsonaro-to-end-environmental-crackdown-in-amazon/2019/09/10/01a6a5f8-d3d2-11e9-8924-1db7dac797fb_story.html