Ana Luiza Poliseli Fávero

Philip Breeden
IR 303
May 15, 2019

Environmental Blackout

Amid all the vibrant fauna and flora found in the Amazon Rainforest, there are

indigenous tribes completely isolated from the rest of society. Without contact with any

Brazilian community, the people claimed to be tall, with long hair but no clothing, body

adornments, or weapons are threatened at every second by an enemy different than the one

seen during the current Pandemic. It is not the virus that is vanishing the isolated indigenous

tribes in the region of Ituna-Itatá in the state of Pará, but invaders who orchestrated plans to

fence the territory and turn it into areas of pasture.

The pandemic has become a smokescreen for the advance of deforestation in the

Amazon rainforest. While countries are busy trying to survive the fast-spreading of a virus

that has affected over 4,408,366 people and taken away at least 296,736 lives worldwide 1,

the world’s lungs, also known as the Amazon Rainforest, are being destroyed as well. From

the immense quantity of trees, which according to the science society American Association

for the Advancement of Science — AAAS gets to 390 billion individual trees 2. The blatant

amount of biodiversity located in the Amazon Rainforest represents the richness of nature on

Planet Earth, it is responsible for the equilibrium of the current ecosystem, and without such

a full-of-life site, the world would not be the same. But as at the moment the world is

1 Coronavirus Cases:. (n.d.). Retrieved May 12, 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

2 @realDonaldTrump. (2019, August, 27). “I have gotten to know President @jairbolsonaro well in our
dealings with Brazil. He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the
people of Brazil - Not easy. He and his country have the full and complete support of the USA [Tweet].
Retrieved from https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1166357258726498304
witnessing such a difficult and tragic time, preserving the rainforest is not as a big priority as

it was last year.

Nature crimes that destroy the Amazon rainforest happen mostly in Brazil's territory.

The location of the jungle gives space for the opening of a collective-goods debate: is the

deforestation happening in the Amazon jungle a responsibility that lies in the hands of the

countries who locate it or because it represents the biodiversity from the planet, all countries

share a portion of the duty to preserve it?

It seems like it depends on how bad the problems in other countries are. When

fighting a pandemic the commotion driven to the fires in the Amazon is smaller while last

year, it reached the voices of many celebrities, and the countries that form the G7 agreed to

raise an emergency fund to protect the world's lungs. The decision that was taken by the

Group of Seven displays how the foreign policies required to get involved in protecting the

major rainforest on Earth is still a grey area. Not all leaders attended the summit. The

American president Donald Trump didn’t show up to discuss what step to take about the

endangerment of the Amazon, demonstrating differences in how important this climate issue

can be from country to country. While the host of the meeting, Emmanuel Macron, declared

an emergency aid totalizing $22 million aiming to help stop the deforestation in the Amazon

rainforest, the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro rejected it all.

The reasoning behind Bolsonaro's actions is the fear that the fund could compromise

Brazil's sovereignty. Although the repercussion of the rejection revealed worldwide

disapproval, the American president Donald Trump made sure to show his support to

Bolsonaro on social media, tweeting “I have gotten to know President @jairbolsonaro well

in our dealings with Brazil. He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects
doing a great job for the people of Brazil - Not easy. He and his country have the full and

complete support of the USA!”3

The support given by the president of the United States symbolizes similarities

between Trump and Bolsonaro. Both are considered to be populist leaders and count with

the support of many nationalists who enjoy the leader’s prejudiced comments on the internet.

Once the resemblance in their train of thought was recognized, giving the Brazilian president

nicknames like “The Donald Trump of South America” and “Trump of the tropics”. Trump

celebrated the solid connection and announced that Brazil and the United States would grow

to be closer business partners. According to the New York Times, Trump said: “I think

Brazil’s relationship with the United States, because of our friendship, is probably better

than it’s ever been by far.” 4

The pandemic has exposed even more similarities between the two world leaders,

who are responsible for the two largest economies in America. Both Trump and Bolsonaro

challenged the political establishment by speaking directly to their supporters and leading

their popular base against governors and congressional leaders, accused by the two

presidents of making politics instead of fulfilling the needs of the population. Their speeches

are encouraging the population to protest against quarantine policies, as they claim that the

wheel of economy should keep on spinning and that this is their priority during the

coronavirus crisis.

The clamant difference is that in Brazil, lives are not just being taken away because

of the virus. The indigenous lands are also being taken away. The Brazilian government

3 FieldMuseum. (2013, October 17). Field Museum scientists estimate 16,000 tree species in the Amazon.
Retrieved May 13, 2020, from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/fm-fms101413.php

4 Shear, M. D., & Haberman, M. (2019, March 19). For Trump, Brazil's President Is Like Looking in the
Mirror. Retrieved May 13, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/us/politics/bolsonaro-trump.html
keeps on neglecting the protection of native tribes, as well as protection of the local fauna

and flora. Wildfires and the stealing of indigenous tribes’ lands are facilitated because as

soon as Jair Bolsonaro got elected, he rolled back several environmental protection laws,

aiming to invest in agriculture and boost the economy regardless of effects such as the

facilitation of crimes committed by the environmental offenders. But the economy started to

collapse due to a combination of a political crisis and the new pandemic.

Despite how similar the mentality of the two presidents is and their decisions on

foreign policies, there is an alarming difference: The United States is a first-world country,

and Brazil is still developing. A simple factor that can show this difference is the amount of

money each country can offer to its citizens during the Pandemic: Brazil is only able to offer

aid of R$600 (worth of approximately $103 US dollars) while the United States has offered

$1200 checks to its citizens. The blatant difference between the strength of the two

economies also represents how Brazil doesn’t have the wealth to avoid the immense

consequences of a financial crisis. Therefore, Brazil doesn't have the money (or the interest)

to save the Amazon by itself. Especially at the moment. While the policies chosen by Jair

Bolsonaro are continued to be applauded, significant parts of the rainforest are going to

vanish day by day, as it has been happening to the region of Ituna-Itatá.

The number of coronavirus cases is growing each day, especially in the state of

Amazonas, named after the Amazon River and it's huge territorial significance to the

rainforest. What led the number of people infected by COVID 19 to explode in the state of

Amazonas is the poor structure of the health system in the region, a failure to maintain social

distances, a sudden change in the weather and, on top of it all, the neglect of the government

to protect the Amazonenses.

 While all eyes being focused on the COVID 19 could mean that the country would

reasonably concentrate its energy on stopping the pandemic, it also means a massive

distraction for this urgent environmental issue. Brazilian land-thieves are taking advantage

of the lack of attention in wildfires to get space to steal more land and burn the forest again

and again. The strategy chosen by the farmers is to burn the invaded land to quickly clear

trees for cattle pastures and soy farms, exploiting a territory that was never theirs, to begin

with. To what extent should citizens from the whole world move their eyes to an issue

happening in a land that is located in their own country, and help an environment that

belongs to all of us?

Protecting the Amazon is a strong strategy to battle climate change. The rainforest is

a key area of concern, it absorbs massive amounts of carbon each year, releases oxygen, it is

the origin of a huge amount of food items people enjoy every single day and is home to an

extensive number of different kinds of living creatures. The consequences for climate

change are going to be seen not just in Brazil, but worldwide, turning the extinction of the

Amazon a concern that should be in everyone’s minds.

The dilemma exists because, on one side, the Amazon rainforest can be considered a

natural patrimony that belongs to all living on Planet Earth. If the rainforest keeps being

mistreated, the negative effects may surge in territories extremely distant from South

America. David Wolking, Senior Manager of the One Health Institute at the University of

California, explained to Greenpeace how the destruction of the Amazon rainforest could lead

to another pandemic in the future: “Where you have a huge biodiverse zone, the Amazon,

and then you have an encroaching human footprint, through urbanization, road networks,
deforestation, extractive industries like logging and mining, you have all of the ingredients

for a virus spillover recipe". 5

But, in a more technical side, the Amazon belongs to the countries it is located

(Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guiana, Suriname, and the French

Guiana) and pointing out how those countries should respond in their land could mean a lack

of sovereignty. This is the point of view that the Brazilian president made explicit as he

rejected the G7 fund, claiming that Brazil is not to be "colonized" and that he would much

rather join forces with the other countries that share the Amazon, and by that guaranteeing

that their sovereignty remains intact and the natural wealth and resources are still theirs —

and not the property of the powerful G7 countries.

A year after the decision to reject the aid coming from the Group of Seven indicates

that the situation in the Amazon rainforest has only gotten worse, but this time, the

commotion is not the same. Deforestation has increased while the index of supervision in

those areas has decreased during a period that is not even the one in which dryness occurs

and leads to the increase of wildfires that happen naturally every single year.

To prevent the situation from getting even worse and encourage the reforestation of

the Amazon, the international community can seek solutions by a dominance approach. This

principle has been used before by countries ke Norway and Germany, for example, who

froze the money that they used to donate to the Amazon Fund to pressure Brazil to slow

down deforestation. According to the Nature correspondent Jeff Tollefson on an interview to

NPR (National Public Radio), " it's a response to the rhetoric that the administration of Jair

Bolsonaro has been putting out. Bolsonaro has basically said to the people in the country that

5 Jordan, L., & Howard, E. (2020, April 24). Breaking down the Amazon: How deforestation could drive a
pandemic. Retrieved May 14, 2020, from https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/04/24/deforestation-amazon-
next-pandemic-covid-coronavirus/
deforestation is OK, development at all costs is OK. And a lot of scientists fear that that

message is starting to take hold, that landowners in the hinterlands in the Amazon are

starting to listen, and now they're burning their fields and they're taking advantage of this".

Although Norway and Germany freezing the millions of dollars that would be invested in

helping the Amazon didn't stop the fires from increasing in 2020, it serves as a message of

repudiation towards the policies chosen by the Brazilian government. Other steps that can be

taken in an attempt to solve the increase in deforestation by a Dominance principle could be

if other powerful countries hindered the trade policies if wildfires and deforestation don't

decrease.

The other direction to solve this problem is to incentive education so that the

population can understand how deforestation works, the facts, and consequences. The

awareness of global citizens can prevent more nature-crimes from being facilitated. This

range of consciousness and sensibility can reach people that want to support indigenous

communities, if their country’s government won’t do it themselves. Science can also be used

as an extremely powerful course of action, indicating to the general population if wildfires

are increasing again. The economic field could use experts to find ways to replace the

economic importance of the Amazon rainforest to a portion of Brazilians and turn the

importance of the jungle into one that is exclusively environmental.

Both directions should include an intensive care on the human rights of the

indigenous people who have lands like Ituna-Itatá, as their one and only home. International

organizations that preserve human rights should keep their attention on injustices like those

who remove tribes from their rightful homes, even at the most chaotic times, like the one we

are all living in right now with the COVID 19.

 This ecological dilemma that involves a debate on priorities and sovereignty is far

from reaching an end, but there is still time for the international community to develop

solutions to prevent ecological offenders from destroying such an important ecosystem.

There is a possibility to reach an equilibrium between guaranteeing Brazil’s sovereignty over

the Amazon rainforest and deciding who carries responsibility for preserving the Earth’s

lungs.

Regardless of the pathway that is chosen is going to be countries pressuring and

penalizing the lands where the Amazon is being burned or if the right pathway is simply

through support and education, there is always a tipping point along the path to something

being completely destroyed. There is still time for human beings all over the planet, from

regular citizens to world leaders, to get conscious about the alarming wildfires and

deforestation happening in the lungs of the Earth.