Brazil tells the world: the Amazon rainforest is only our

The management of the largest tropical forest in the world is a Brazilian affair and foreigners must stop interfering in the Amazonsaid senior security adviser President Jair Bolsonaro in an interview.

"I do not accept this idea that the Amazon is a world heritage, it's nonsense"General Augusto Heleno Pereira said in an interview in Brasilia. "The Amazon is Brazilian, it is a Brazilian heritage and must be processed by Brazil and for the benefit of Brazil."

Pereira's comments coincide with the government's plans to examine existing conservation areas because of growing pressure from mining and agriculture lobbyists. Earlier this month, the president canceled a trip to New York after Mayor Bill de Blasio. Activists have criticized it for its position vis-à-vis the Amazon rainforest, which conservation scientists say is the key to the climate change debate.

Pereira, who led a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti, made harsh remarks to non-governmental organizations working in the country and said that some of them were acting as fronts for foreign interests.

"There is a totally useless and detrimental foreign influence in the Amazon," said Pereira. "NGOs hide strategic, economic and geopolitical interests".

Bolsonaro took power in January with the promise of easing regulations and claimed that environmental and indigenous rights groups are harming farmers and the mining industry. . He added that too many companies have been unfairly sanctioned for breaking the rules that have harmed business activity.

In one of his first actions as president, Bolsonaro deprived the National Aboriginal Agency of the right to delimit indigenous territories. He also transferred the National Forest Service to the Ministry of Agriculture. These decisions, which Congress can still change, have outraged indigenous activists and environmentalists, but have delighted Brazil's powerful agricultural lobby.

This month, eight Brazilian environment ministers warned in an open letter that Bolsonaro was dismantling environmental protections and harming the image of the country abroad. The current Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, replied that his office has retained its autonomy and that it is the NGOs that undermine the reputation of Brazil.

"We have the capacity to lead sustainable development in the Amazon without harming the rest of the world," said Pereira. "Now I can not accept that the rest of the world is giving lessons on the Amazon."