Brasilia - Two years ago, the Amazon was aflame, ravaged by arsonists and loggers. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro went to war.
Government data show that deforestation last year surged to a 12-year high. Areas equal to seven times the size of London were destroyed.Late last year, Vice President Hamilton Mourao, a retired Army general and Bolsonaro's deforestation czar, announced that efforts to protect the rainforest in April will revert to Ibama, the civilian environmental-protection agency the deployment had bigfooted despite its history of success combating deforestation.
Early in the administration, another former general and top advisor to Bolsonaro shocked many with a video in which he called for damming an Amazon tributary and extending a grain corridor toward Suriname. The project would have quintupled the human population of the northern Amazon, he said. Brazil's army soldiers take position during an operation to combat illegal logging at a sawmill, in Porto Velho, Rondonia state. Picture: Brazilian Army/Handout via Reuters
The ministry declined requests by Reuters over the past year to accompany troops on the deployment. For this report, the news agency interviewed dozens of government officials, Ibama agents, and others close to the deployment. For the people of Latin America's biggest, most populous country, the operation illustrates the limits of Bolsonaro's tough-talking approach to governing. Despite promises to restore law, order and prosperity, Brazil remains wracked by a feeble economy, high rates of violent crime and the second-highest Covid death toll in the world.
Logging is legal in some parts of the rainforest. A web of regulations defines what trees can be felled and where. But ensuring compliance is tricky. Loggers and sawmill operators often try to disguise unauthorized wood as legal. No comparable figure for past fines is available because the agencies historically haven't collated sanctions. The Defense Ministry declined to break down its tally.
Brazil's army soldiers walk next to piles of lumber cut illegally from Amazon rainforest at a sawmill during an operation to combat illegal logging, in Porto Velho, Rondonia state. File picture: Brazilian Army/Handout via ReutersThe Amazon, a dense forest comprising the river of the same name and its many giant tributaries, makes up about half of Brazil's territory. It forms a border of more than 10,000 km with seven other South American countries.
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