Post by rmarks1 on Aug 26, 2019 20:10:15 GMT -5
Amid Outrage Over Rainforest Fires, Many in the Amazon Remain Defiant
RIO DE JANEIRO — Seeing the global panic over thousands of forest fires in the Amazon last week, and hearing the calls to boycott Brazilian products, Agamenon da Silva Menezes wondered if the world had gone mad.
Mr. da Silva is a farmers’ union leader in Novo Progresso, a community in a heavily deforested state in northern Brazil, and he considers the fires burning in the region a normal part of life. It’s how some farmers clear land to make a living, and a natural result of the dry season.
“We’re going to continue producing here in the Amazon and we’re going to continue feeding the world,” Mr. da Silva said in an interview. “There’s no need for all this outrage.”
In Novo Progresso, as in many parts of Brazil, there is strong support for President Jair Bolsonaro’s policy on the Amazon, which prioritizes economic development over environmental protections. These Brazilians argue that fire and deforestation are essential to keep small farmers and large ranches that export beef and soy to the world in business, and that the damage they do to the world’s largest rainforest is modest.
Further, they are indignant at what they see as a colonialist attitude by outsiders trying to decide how Brazilians should steward their own land.
Mr. Bolsonaro himself said on Monday that Brazil would not accept demands to “save the Amazon, as though we were a colony or no man’s land.” Earlier this month, a group of farmers, loggers and business owners in Novo Progresso and elsewhere announced they would be setting coordinated fires as a show of force by industries that resent enforcement of environmental laws...
Andre Pagliarini, a Brazilian historian, said that international pressure to conserve the Amazon may backfire if it stokes fears that wealthier nations want to keep the Amazon pristine to stymie Brazil’s growth — or to appropriate its wealth for themselves. That view was prevalent when the country’s military rulers set in motion an ambitious development plan for the rainforest during the 1960s and 1970s.
“All this talk of foreign collaboration in preserving the Amazon may be well-intentioned, it may be genuine, but it touches a raw nerve in Brazil: the notion that wealthier foreigners want to chip away at Brazil’s authority over the Amazon,” said Mr. Pagliarini, who will be lecturing at Dartmouth College next fall.
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/world/americas/brazil-amazon-rainforest-fire.html
RIO DE JANEIRO — Seeing the global panic over thousands of forest fires in the Amazon last week, and hearing the calls to boycott Brazilian products, Agamenon da Silva Menezes wondered if the world had gone mad.
Mr. da Silva is a farmers’ union leader in Novo Progresso, a community in a heavily deforested state in northern Brazil, and he considers the fires burning in the region a normal part of life. It’s how some farmers clear land to make a living, and a natural result of the dry season.
“We’re going to continue producing here in the Amazon and we’re going to continue feeding the world,” Mr. da Silva said in an interview. “There’s no need for all this outrage.”
In Novo Progresso, as in many parts of Brazil, there is strong support for President Jair Bolsonaro’s policy on the Amazon, which prioritizes economic development over environmental protections. These Brazilians argue that fire and deforestation are essential to keep small farmers and large ranches that export beef and soy to the world in business, and that the damage they do to the world’s largest rainforest is modest.
Further, they are indignant at what they see as a colonialist attitude by outsiders trying to decide how Brazilians should steward their own land.
Mr. Bolsonaro himself said on Monday that Brazil would not accept demands to “save the Amazon, as though we were a colony or no man’s land.” Earlier this month, a group of farmers, loggers and business owners in Novo Progresso and elsewhere announced they would be setting coordinated fires as a show of force by industries that resent enforcement of environmental laws...
Andre Pagliarini, a Brazilian historian, said that international pressure to conserve the Amazon may backfire if it stokes fears that wealthier nations want to keep the Amazon pristine to stymie Brazil’s growth — or to appropriate its wealth for themselves. That view was prevalent when the country’s military rulers set in motion an ambitious development plan for the rainforest during the 1960s and 1970s.
“All this talk of foreign collaboration in preserving the Amazon may be well-intentioned, it may be genuine, but it touches a raw nerve in Brazil: the notion that wealthier foreigners want to chip away at Brazil’s authority over the Amazon,” said Mr. Pagliarini, who will be lecturing at Dartmouth College next fall.
www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/world/americas/brazil-amazon-rainforest-fire.html
Apparently Mcanswer, you are taking the side of Colonialists against the poor, people of color in Brazil who are who are just trying to survive.
Bob
Once again, you have provided the evidence in your own posts. 
