The Group of Seven nations on Monday pledged $20 million to help Amazon countries fight fires, even as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said rich countries were treating the region like a "colony."
The G-7 pledge came despite tensions between European countries and the Brazilian president, who suggested the West was angling to exploit Brazil's natural resources.
"Look, does anyone help anyone — not including poor people, you know — without something in return? What have they wanted there for so long?" he said to journalists outside the presidential palace.
The Group of Seven nations on Monday pledged $20 million to help Amazon countries fight fires. Pixabay
The far-right populist initially questioned whether activist groups might have started the fires in an effort to damage the credibility of his government. Bolsonaro has called for looser environmental regulations in the world's largest rainforest to spur development.
In response, European leaders threatened to block a major trade deal with Brazil that would benefit the very agricultural interests accused of driving deforestation.
In Brazil's Para state, where fires have swept many areas, resident Moacir Cordeiro said Sunday that he was worried about their impact on nature and his health. Smoke rose from nearby trees as he spoke.
"I don't think there are enough people to extinguish the fires," said Cordeiro, who lives in the Alvorada da Amazonia region. He said it was difficult to breath at night because of the smoke.
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Another man, Antonio de Jesus, was also worried.
"Nature shouldn't be killed off like that," he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday continued his feud with Bolsonaro, who had endorsed a Facebook post insulting Macron's wife. Macron accused him of skipping a scheduled meeting with the French foreign minister in favor of a barber appointment and reiterating that Bolsonaro had lied to him.
Macron said: "It's sad. First for him and for the Brazilians."
The G-7 pledge came despite tensions between European countries and the Brazilian president, who suggested the West was angling to exploit Brazil's natural resources. Pixabay
He said Brazilian women "are doubtless ashamed to read that about their president" and that he hoped the country would soon have a president who could behave according to the standards of the office.
Bolsonaro, in turn, referred to Macron's "ludicrous and unnecessary attacks on the Amazon" and accused the French leader of treating the region "as if we were a colony."
Meanwhile, thousands of people have demonstrated in cities across Brazil and outside Brazilian embassies around the world. #PrayforAmazonia became a worldwide trending topic.
Bolsonaro has 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.
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The move was welcomed by many critics, but some say it's not enough and comes too late.
In violating environmental agreements, Brazil has been discredited and "unable to exercise any type of leadership on the international stage," said Mauricio Santoro, an international relations professor at Rio de Janeiro State University.
Brazilian military planes began dumping water on fires in the Amazon state of Rondonia over the weekend, and a few hundred of the promised troops deployed into the fire zone. But many Brazilians again took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro and other cities Sunday to demand the administration do more.
Critics say the large number of fires this year has been stoked by Bolsonaro's encouragement of farmers, loggers and ranchers to speed efforts to strip away forest. Although he has now vowed to protect the area, they say it is only out of fear of a diplomatic crisis and economic losses.