As EU threatens trade retaliation, Brazil sends army to fight Amazon fires

Under increasing international pressure to contain fires sweeping parts of the Amazon, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday authorised use of the military to battle the massive blazes.

Brazilian forces will deploy starting Saturday to border areas, indigenous territories and other affected regions in the Amazon to assist in putting out fires for a month, according to a presidential decree.

The armed forces will collaborate with public security and environmental protection agencies, the decree says. Bolsonaro's office confirmed that he had signed it.

Bolsonaro met with a team of senior officials on Friday afternoon, including the defence and environment ministers as well as the foreign minister, to hammer out a response to the crisis. 

Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias insisted that Brazil was "taking care" of the Amazon, and that international concerns over the fires should be cooled down.

"The news is worrying, but I think we have to lower the temperature. The Amazon is important, Brazil knows that, and Brazil is taking care of the Amazon," Dias told reporters.

Bolsonaro has previously described rainforest protections as an obstacle to economic development, sparring with critics who note that the Amazon produces vast amounts of oxygen and is considered crucial in efforts to contain global warming.

An Associated Press journalist who travelled to the Amazon region on Friday saw many already deforested areas that had been burned.

Charred trees and fallen branches were seen around Porto Velho, the capital of Rondonia state, which borders Bolivia. In some instances, the burned fields were adjacent to intact livestock ranches and other farms, suggesting the fires had been managed as part of a land-clearing policy.

A large column of smoke billowed from one fire, and smoke rose from a couple of nearby wooded areas. Life appeared normal in Porto Velho. However, visibility from the windows of an arriving airplane was poor because of smog enveloping the region.

Small numbers of demonstrators gathered outside Brazilian diplomatic missions in Paris, London, Geneva and Bogota, Colombia, to urge Brazil to do more to fight the fires. Larger protests were held in Uruguay and Argentina. About 100 or so protested in Chile.

TRT World's Philip Owira has more.

Fires in Bolivia and Paraguay

Neighbouring Bolivia and Paraguay have also struggled to contain fires that swept through woods and fields and, in many cases, were set to clear land for farming. About 7,500 square kilometres (2,900 square miles) of land has been affected in Bolivia, according to Defence Minister Javier Zavaleta.

On Friday, a B747-400 SuperTanker arrived in Bolivia and began flying over devastated areas to help put out the fires and protect forests. The US-based aircraft can carry nearly 76,000 litres (20,000 gallons) of retardant, a substance used to stop fires.

Some 370 square kilometres (140 square miles) have burned in northern Paraguay, near the borders with Brazil and Bolivia, said Joaquín Roa, a Paraguayan state emergency official.

He said the situation has stabilised.

Close to 20% of the Amazon has already been deforested, according to Thomas Lovejoy, a George Mason University environmental scientist.

'Warmer and drier planet'

"I worry that the current deforestation will push past the tipping point leading to massive loss of forest and biodiversity," Lovejoy wrote in an email to The Associated Press. He said Brazil is "turning its back" on past environmental achievements , including the 1992 Earth Summit, and has proposed infrastructure projects that will accelerate the challenge of climate change.

"Fires are directly burning into the Amazon rainforest and that releases the carbon stored in those trees," said Doug Morton, a NASA scientist. "The carbon then enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane, where it contributes to the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change, bringing us a warmer and a drier planet."

Morton said there is now "an uptick in the pressure against the remaining Amazon forest, to expand agriculture production in areas that are the leading edge in the deforestation frontier."

Fires are common in Brazil in the annual dry season, but they are much more widespread this year. Brazilian state experts reported nearly 77,000 wildfires across the country so far this year, up 85% over the same period in 2018.

Just over half of those fires have occurred in the Amazon region. Brazil contains about 60% of the Amazon rainforest.

Reactions

European leaders on Friday threatened to tear up a trade deal with South America, reflecting the growing international dismay and anger with Brazil as a record number of fires in the Amazon rainforest intensified the unfolding environmental crisis.

In escalating tension over the fires, France accused Bolsonaro of having lied to French leader Emmanuel Macron and threatened to block a European Union trade deal with several South American states, including Brazil.

Ireland joined in the threat.

The spectre of possible economic repercussions for Brazil and its South American neighbours show how the Amazon is becoming a battleground between Bolsonaro and Western governments alarmed that vast swathes of the region are going up in smoke on his watch.

Ahead of a Group of Seven summit in France this weekend, Macron's office questioned Bolsonaro's trustworthiness.

Brazilian statements and decisions indicate Bolsonaro "has decided to not respect his commitments on the climate, nor to involve himself on the issue of biodiversity," Macron's office said.

It added that France now opposes an EU trade deal "in its current state" with the Mercosur bloc of South American nations that includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel views the fires as "shocking and threatening," according to government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

Argentina, which is struggling with rising poverty and austerity measures, has offered to send emergency workers to Brazil and Bolivia to help put out the fires. Chile has also offered aid.

The White House said in a statement that it is deeply concerned about the impact of the Amazon fires on communities, biodiversity and natural resources in the region.

The Brazilian government has said European countries are exaggerating Brazil's environmental problems in order to disrupt its commercial interests. Bolsonaro, who has said he wants to convert land for cattle pastures and soybean farms, said it was difficult to curb increasing deforestation with limited resources.

"It's not easy to fight deforestation, our Amazon area is bigger than all of Europe," he said. "We'll do what we can to fight this crime."