South American Politics thread - Page 33

Imazon, a Brazilian research center, reports deforestation in the first months of 2019 jumped more than 50 percent compared to the amount during the same period in 2018. Half of this deforestation has occurred illegally in protected areas, including hundreds of Indigenous lands that cover a quarter of Brazil’s Amazon and provide a crucial buffer for much of the rest. (In the rainforest bastion state of Amazonas, Indigenous lands account for close to a third of the standing forest.)

On August 22 2019 11:05 GoTuNk! wrote:
Natural disaster of uknown cause -> blame right wing politician I don't like

For general information on the thread, Bolivian president Evo Morales issued decree 3973 on July 9th of this month enabling deforastion of the Amazonas for commercial use, just a month before fire in Chiquitanía region started and went out of control.
Part of the burning Amazonas belongs to Bolivia and the fires might have started there, but the media will quickly ignore this fact, and jump to put the blame on the president they don't like when anything to be established at this point is pure guessing.

Sources: (spanish)
https://www.exitonoticias.com.bo/articulo/nacional/solo-dias-bolivia-perdio-mas-bosque-ano/20190821091636035082.html
https://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2019/8/19/evo-autorizo-quemas-desmontes-un-mes-antes-de-los-incendios-forestales-con-el-ds-3973-228013.html

DW: What's behind this surge in forest fires in Brazil? Is it to do with warmer temperatures or stronger winds this year, or is it something else?

Carlos Nobre: It is something else. In fact the dry season this year is not extremely dry, it is normal. The winds in that part of the Amazon are not that strong. So really, most of the forest fires in the Amazon are not natural forest fires, they are human-induced, usually by farmers and ranchers.

Unfortunately, in tropical agriculture, fire is still used routinely. And some of those fires spread, then reach and burn large areas of forest. The typical system in Brazil and in all Amazonian countries is that people cut down trees and then leave the area to dry out for about two or three months before setting it on fire in order to clear the land for agricultural purposes.

So this is a very common phenomenon. But what we're seeing this year is more deforestation. We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months.

On August 22 2019 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:


It's most definitely not a natural disaster? Fires are being set by agribiz and their allies. This is well known.

Bolsonaro is saying (without a shred of evidence) maybe NGO's set the fires to make him look bad. Carlos Nobre, a Senior researcher with the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Sao Paolo, says otherwise.



www.dw.com

On August 22 2019 11:59 GoTuNk! wrote:


OH so everyone is guessing, we are gonna blame Bolsonaro anyway, and completely ignore that it was Bolivia's president that enabled further deforestation just a month ago.

On August 22 2019 23:07 JimmiC wrote:
This is scary shitty times. Between this and gold mining in Venezuela and I'm sure a ton of other things I don't know about the environment is being destroyed. down south. Unlike GH I don't blame the US since the same or worse is happening in areas that the US does not support. But I do blame greed and corruption, which is prevalent through out the entire region (greed the whole world and corruption is particularly bad down south). I don't think any party down there will stop either since they all seem rotten to the core. Somehow they need to get the middle class big enough and strong enough to rail against all the bullshit.

On August 23 2019 08:02 JimmiC wrote:

Well the people who lit the fire may be put in jail. It will be a test to the rule of law in Brazil and if it still matters. The gold mining is a threat and is done not only with approval by the Maduro government. But by the government. So you can split the hairs as much as you like. It isn't the ISM it is greed which sadly applys no matter the ism. It is of course the poor and so on suffering most in Venezuela despite being "socialist" go figure.

On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote:
Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.

Mr. Bolsonaro — who once said that Brazil’s environmental policy is “suffocating the country” and on Sunday triumphed in the national election — has promised to champion his country’s powerful agribusiness sector, which seeks to open up more forest to produce the beef and soy that the world demands.

Mr. Bolsonaro has said he would scrap the Environment Ministry, which is mandated to protect the environment, and instead fold it into the Agriculture Ministry, which tends to favor the interests of those who would convert forests into farmland.

He has dismissed the idea of setting aside forest land for native Brazilians who have lived in the Amazon for centuries, promising that “there won’t be a square centimeter demarcated as an indigenous reserve” under his leadership.

Recent studies show that forest reserves controlled by native people in many countries provide some of the best defenses against deforestation. Mr. Bolsonaro sees other uses of the forest, though. “Where there is indigenous land,” he has said, “there is wealth underneath it.”

On August 23 2019 09:39 JimmiC wrote:
Supporting his government and supporting the burning of the rain forest so farmers can till more land is not the same thing, I would hope you would understand this.

On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote:
Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.


You would be a lot easier to take if instead of railing against the US you were actually railing again oppression. Than you would see Maduro for what he is. Trust me when I tell you it is great to be able to hate Maduro, Bolsonaro, Putin, Kim, Trump, and the like.

On August 23 2019 10:52 JimmiC wrote:

They are all leaders I don't like. I tried to pick some from the entire political specturm to show that was not my only criteria.

On August 23 2019 11:06 GoTuNk! wrote:


I'm sorry to imply anything then, that's a perfectly valid point.

I'm honestly appaled how some people, like GH, but all over instagram, can't wait 2 seconds when a natural disaster happens and inmediatately use it to put baseless blame on politicians they don't like. Or again in GH's case, on unrelated countries they deeply hate, like the US.