Statement on the Amazon fires: Bolsonaro's political crimes and urgent action.
Spanish version
The recent images circulating around the world of the fires in the Amazon, as well as in the Pantanal, the Cerrado, and the Chaco, and the smoke plumes over the city of São Paulo, are not mere climatic coincidences, but rather the result of the advance of neo-extractivism and the voracious deforestation intensified by the criminal policies of the Bolsonaro government. This government is misusing the law to promote a criminal policy against the most basic human rights and the rights of nature. The gigantic fire frontier ravaging the Amazon constitutes one of the most abhorrent chapters of its political crimes and deserves the most urgent and active condemnation from the entire international community.
Since last year's election campaign, Bolsonaro has supported militias, landowners, loggers, illegal miners, and all those who have an interest in the plundering of natural resources; with his support, he fosters environmental crimes, violence against peasant, indigenous, and environmental leaders, and also impunity for these crimes.
The first measures taken by the government after assuming power were aimed at suppressing environmental regulations and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Associated with explicitly racist rhetoric, he used his Facebook Live broadcasts to encourage interest groups linked to criminal practices by promising to legalize mining and monoculture soy plantations within Indigenous territories. Under Bolsonaro's administration, his ministers systematically persecute officials and enforcement agents while simultaneously cutting funding for law enforcement operations, for example, by slashing the budgets of the federal police and the environmental protection agency.
Space Research Institute (INPE, which Bolsonaro has attacked with accusations of fake news, censorship, and political interference) has recorded more than 72,8 fires so far this year, an 83% increase compared to last year's fires. This follows a 278% increase in deforestation in July and a 30% decrease in fines issued by the environmental enforcement agency. These fires are fueled by criminal activities linked to the voracious appetite for resources, whether from agribusiness, large-scale mining, logging, or speculative land grabbing, among others. Behind each fire lies the destruction of rivers and biodiversity, the pollution of water, air, and soil, the murders, torture, and persecution of Indigenous populations and traditional communities (riverbank dwellers, farmers, quilombola communities), and the mass death of animals. Behind every fire, the threat of extermination of these peoples/cultures, as well as other species, is also fueled.
The fires that we denounce and condemn here are not only happening in Brazil; there are also outbreaks in Bolivia and Paraguay, due to the same motives and the same actors, so the negligence and political responsibility for these crimes also falls on the governments of these countries, and in general, on all governments that, regardless of their ideological orientations, have been promoting the ongoing extractive voracity.
Incidentally, the systematic plan to destroy the Amazon did not begin with Bolsonaro, nor is it limited to his administration. However, since he came to power, there has been a perverse shift toward acceleration, intensification, and impunity. This unhinged advance of neo-extractivism, rampant deforestation, and uncontrolled fires in a context of drought reveal the essence of contemporary capitalism and its tendency toward ecocide. The destruction and damage caused by these policies affect not only the entire Amazon basin but also important ecoregions of South America, such as the Pantanal, the Cerrado, and the Chaco. The intensification of an accumulation pattern based on the systematic plundering of the natural resources of these territories places us in an extremely serious situation, not only for the Amazon and its historical inhabitants, nor for South America, but for all human populations living on and off our planet Earth.
The burning of the Amazon is yet another chapter, but not the least serious; rather, it is one of the most egregious, in the process of devastation that the “modern economy” is carrying out before our very eyes. In the name of “development” and “civilization,” we are witnessing one of the most extreme acts of human barbarity. We feel and declare—for ourselves, not for “the environment”—that we cannot remain impassive in the face of this macabre spectacle of death on a massive scale. From the critical and socially and environmentally engaged academic community, we call for an urgent and active condemnation of this government and its criminal policies regarding the Amazon. We call for solidarity to multiply and coordinate actions in defense of the Amazon and its peoples, guardians of the forest and its waters, in order to stop and condemn the crimes against nature and humanity being perpetrated by the current Bolsonaro government.
August 2019
CLACSO Working Group
Political ecology(ies) from the South/Abya-Yala
Signed by: academics and researchers from more than 50 universities in Latin America and Europe.
LATIN AMERICA:
Brazil: Felipe Milanez, Camila Moreno, Stephanie Salgado, Luiz Marques, Ricardo Folhes, Caetano De' Carli, Daniel Jeziorny, Elaine Santos, CláudiaGuedes, Marcos Leite De Matos Todt, CláudiaGuedes, Salvador Schavelzon, Laila Thomaz Sandroni, Gilca, Garcia de Oliveira, Roberto Araújo de Oliveira Santos Júnior, LailaSandroni, Eduardo Neves, Vanessa Empinotti, Ricardo TheophiloFolhes, Edna Castro, Thiago Cardozo, GilcaGarcia de Oliveira, Íñigo Arrazola Aranzabal, Adriana Bravin.
Argentina: Horacio Machado Aráoz, Maristella Svampa, Paula Damico, Ana Carballo, María Gabriela Merlinsky, Nazaret Castro, Ariel M. Slipak, Marian Sola Alvarez, Jonatán Andrés Núñez, Laura Álvarez, Gabriela Wyczykier, Lucrecia Wagner, Facundo Rojas, Pablo Bertinat, Leticia Sadi, Sofia Astelarra, Cecilia Anigstein, Pablo Jorge Bertinat, Juan Antonio Acacio, Melisa Argento, Julieta Godfrid, Martín Kazimierski, Gustavo Romeo, Martina Gamba, Bruno Fornillo. Chile: Beatriz Bustos, Francisca Fernández, María Fragkou, Evelyn Arriagada, Santiago Urrutia Reveco.
Colombia: Denisse Roca Servat, Catalina Toro Pérez, Tatiana Roa Avendaño, Patricia Noguera, Laura Gutiérrez, Yusmidia Solano Suárez, John Fitzgerald Martinez, Mario Alejandro Pérez Rincón, Paola Marcela Trivino Cruz, Juan Camilo Cajigas, Johan Ardila Espinel, Ximena Osorio Osorio, Mauro Carvajal Guerrero, Camilo Salcedo Montero, María Luisa Eschenhagen, Ana Isabel Márquez Pérez, Yusmidia Solano.
Costa Rica: Grettel Navas.
Cuba: Maydi Bayona, Gilberto Javier Cabrera Trimiño, Yolanda Wood.
Ecuador: Melissa Moreano, Elizabeth Bravo.
HondurasSofia Marcia, Carlos Alberto Alvarado Hernández, Orlando David Murillo Lizardo.
Mexico: Enrique Leff, Víctor Toledo Manzur, Mina Lorena Navarro, Omar Felipe Giraldo, Aída Luz López, Flor Mercedes Rodríguez Zornoza, Mariana Elkisch, Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, Ezer May May, Sergio Prieto Díaz, Lucia Linsalata, Úrsula Hernández, Sandra Rátiva Gaona.
Nicaragua: Mario Sánchez.
Peru: Gisselle Vila Benites, Raquel Neyra, Luis Felipe Torres Espinoza.
Puerto Rico: Gustavo García.
Venezuela: Edgardo Lander, Emiliano Terán Mantovani. EUROPE:
Belgium: Robin Larsimont.
Spain: Joan Martínez Alier.
France: Mina Kleiche.
Italy: Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro.
This statement expresses the position of the members of the Political Ecology Working Groups and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
