How Did Brazil Turn Into an Environmental “Villain” in One Month?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In just over a month, Bolsonaro’s government — which had previously heard occasional criticism from other countries since the beginning of the year for its environmental actions — has soured foreign humor for good after a sequence of attacks on scientific data, institutions, and people.

Even NGOs have been accused of setting fire to the forest and governors have been said to be colluding with the problem. But while the president sought to find culprits for “damaging Brazil abroad,” it was the real problems, such as deforestation and fires, and his controversial statements that changed the image of Brazil abroad.

This is the opinion of a number of experts in environment, agriculture, and international relations heard by São Paulo newspaper Estado in an attempt to answer the question: How did we get to this point?

For some of them, it was a tragedy foretold since the electoral period, when Bolsonaro gave inflammatory speeches against what he describes as the fining industry by environmental organizations and had plans to the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) and withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

The latter two did not happen, but several measures adopted since taking office may answer the question. “Bolsonaro has entirely changed his approach to the environment,” comments diplomat Rubens Ricupero, former Minister of the Environment and Finance.

In his opinion, frequent attacks on IBAMA and ICMBio inspectors and technicians by Bolsonaro and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles have been “clear indications that environmental policy has been relaxed. The inspector who fined Bolsonaro (for fishing in a conservation unit in Rio) was punished.”

“When IBAMA destroyed equipment seized in an operation against illegal logging, in line with the law, Bolsonaro had a fit of anger, and Salles went to meet with loggers,” Ricupero states.

“The president challenged INPE’s alarming data on deforestation and fired its director. And his son Flavio has submitted a bill to the Senate to end the Legal Reserve (a provision in the Forestry Code that protects forest plots within rural properties),” he continues.

The clearest result of this is the increase in deforestation and forest fires pointed out by INPE, as well as the reduction in the number of infraction notices. By the end of June, 5,826 fines had been levied, against 7,326 over the same period in the previous year. This is the lowest figure since 2015.

Requests for information on the number of IBAMA inspections were never granted, but Estado determined that this year no action to fight deforestation has been authorized by the Special Inspection Group — IBAMA’s elite troop, which fights organized crime.

“The government claims that funds are insufficient, but those that came from donations, such as the Amazon Fund, Bolsonaro is giving up. What kind of credibility does a government that tells Angela Merkel to take the money and use it to reforest Germany have? This is the greatest image and foreign policy crisis we’ve ever had in fifty years,” Ricupero says.

The information is from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.