Brazil Prepares Reaction to Europe on Amazon Destruction

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Vice-President Hamilton Mourão said yesterday that the government will use diplomacy to address the dissatisfaction expressed by a number of European countries with the increasing deforestation in the Amazon.

“We have to engage in diplomatic negotiations, but also on environmental issues,” said Mourão, commenting on a letter sent by the embassies of Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom, which alerted on the potential impacts of forest degradation on trade issues.

“Our collective efforts to create greater investment in sustainable agricultural production and improve access to sustainably sourced products in the markets can also support Brazil’s economic growth,” reads the text sent by the European countries.

However, the document stresses that while “European efforts are seeking supply chains unconnected to deforestation, the current trend in Brazil makes it increasingly difficult for companies and investors to meet their environmental, social and governance criteria.”

This criticism, which was already exposed to Brazil several months ago by representatives of some 40 global investment funds, joins others made by powerful companies, which turned against the environmental management of the Jair Bolsonaro government.

On Tuesday, about 200 civil society organizations, agribusiness and financial sector companies also proposed to the government a series of measures to reduce deforestation in the Amazon, which continues at alarming levels.

Mourão, who leads the National Council of the Legal Amazon, a federal organization that coordinates several actions aimed at the preservation of what is the largest tropical forest in the world, declared that one of the first steps of the “diplomatic offensive” could be the organization of a trip to the Amazon with ambassadors from the European countries, to learn about the reality of the region.

Mourão said that Brazil “does not deny or hide information about the gravity of the situation,” but clarified that the government “does not accept simplistic or distorted narratives” that, in his opinion, prevail “in some parts of the world on the Amazon.”

The Vice-President also reiterated that in some cases, particularly when it comes to European countries, criticism of Brazil for deforestation is part of a “trade strategy” related to protecting markets. “There are tariff and non-tariff barriers”, he said, and this criticism ” is often one of such barriers.”

In 2019, which coincided with Bolsonaro’s first year in power, the loss of vegetation coverage in the planet’s largest tropical forest increased by 85 percent to 9,165 square kilometers, its highest level since 2016, according to official data. This year, deforestation has already reached 6,099 square kilometers.

Several studies show that the higher the levels of deforestation, the worse fires will become in the region, many of them of criminal origin, to convert forest areas into land for agriculture and livestock.

Civil society blames Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental rhetoric for such an increase, with the head of state also advocating an end to the demarcation of new indigenous lands.

The Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world and boasts the largest recorded biodiversity in a single area (5.5 million square kilometers) on the planet. It covers the territories of Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana (an overseas French department).