RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro said on August 16th that countries investing funds in Brazil for environmental preservation programs are “buying up Brazil in installments”. He criticized Norway, which, along with Germany, decided to suspend its transfers into the Amazon Fund.
“They are buying out Brazil in installments. In the past, the purchase was also made by demarcating land, Brazil only made agreements abroad in exchange for giving up its sovereignty, demarcating indigenous lands, expanding parks,” he said, exemplifying the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park in Goiás, expanded in 2017 under then-president Michel Temer’s government.
According to the president, the reserves hinder the country’s development. “It can’t go on like this. There are places where you can produce, but you won’t produce, because you can’t export or sell, you have to make a huge curve to dodge a quilombola, an indigenous land, an environmental protection area. They’re killing Brazil,” he said when he left the Palácio da Alvorada on Friday morning.
Bolsonaro also stressed that he would not demarcate indigenous lands during his administration. “As long as I am president, there is no demarcation of indigenous land,” he said. “They own 14 percent of the national territory. Imagine the Southeast Region, an area larger than that is already indigenous land, isn’t it enough? Yesterday [August, 15th], I met again with a group of indigenous people, and they want the freedom to work in their area, they don’t want to live as if they were in confinement, as prehistoric beings,” he added.