Brazilian war planes dump water on Amazon fires following global outcry.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has insulted adversaries and allies, disparaged women, blacks and homosexuals, and even praised his country's 1964-1985 dictatorship. Yet nothing has rallied more anger at home and criticism from abroad than his response to fires raging in parts of the Amazon region.
Bolsonaro finally took a less confrontational approach Friday and announced he would send 44,000 soldiers to help battle the blazes, which mostly seem to be charring land deforested, perhaps illegally, for farming and ranching rather than burning through stands of trees."No democratic government has suffered such international criticism as Bolsonaro is going through," said Mauricio Santoro, an international relations professor at Rio de Janeiro State University.
"The international pressure today has a bigger impact than the demonstrations by Brazilians on the streets," Santoro said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country and others will talk with Brazil about reforestation in the Amazon once the fires have been extinguished. "We've had eight months without any type of concrete action in defense of the Amazon," said Rómulo Batista, a member of Greenpeace Brazil's Amazonia Campaign. He said the flames licking over swaths of the Amazon are a reflection of Bolsonaro's environmental policy.
Bolsonaro has argued with critics who note that the Amazon produces vast amounts of oxygen and is considered crucial for efforts to contain climate change. But Batista predicts the fires will prove a turning point and the pressure by G-7 leaders will shift Bolsonaro's view on the environment.
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