Jair Bolsonaro forbids controlled burning

It will be for 60 days, until the end of the drought season in the Amazon, threatened by several sources of fire.

PORTO VELHO.- After putting the armed forces in action to fight the fire in the
Amazon and in a new attempt to reduce the damage to the international image of Brazil due to the fires that devastate the jungle, the president
Jair Bolsonaro yesterday banned controlled burning across the country.

By decree, the president ordered the measure for the next two months, a period that coincides with the end of the drought season, when new fires are recorded to rid the vegetation of the land that will then be used to feed livestock or to feed the cattle. agricultural crops In theory, the Forest Code already prohibits almost all burning; It allows their phytosanitary control only if they are authorized by an environmental organization, in terms of fire prevention and fire-fighting practices, and in subsistence farming of traditional and indigenous populations, so that most of the fires that cause Rural producers must be considered as crimes.

"The burning of vegetation is a primitive and inexpensive way of cleaning the land, but in areas such as the Amazon, where one seeks to preserve the jungle, it is very dangerous, as we have seen this year with the increase of fires.People have no environmental education and looking for the fastest way to obtain economic benefit, "said José Saraiva, forestry engineer of the department of environmental law experts of the civil police of the Amazonian state of Rondonia, where the rains of these last days have Calmer.

In any case, the expert complained of the lack of human and technical resources to carry out an audit. "We do not have enough troops to cover the vast space on which we act and we do not have the appropriate technology to constantly monitor where the fire sources appear" , he explained.

The latest satellite data from the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) indicated that 84,957 forest fires were recorded between January and Wednesday, of which more than half (51.8%) in the Amazon, consisting of nine States (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondonia, Roraima and Tocantins). And although the Armed Forces, in charge of Operation Green Brazil, insist that the shooting faded, in the last 24 hours, Inpe had added 1628 new outbreaks.

In addition to the fact that this year was marked by high temperatures, low humidity and high winds, which led to the spread of forest fires, it is suspected that many rural producers felt tacitly encouraged to burn more heavily. by the anti-environmentalist speech of Bolsonaro. During last year's election campaign, he had already indicated that he opposed the complex regulation of the preservation of the environment as an obstacle to the development of the environment. the poorest regions of the country, such as the Amazon. And since taking office on January 1, it has cut back on environmental control agency funds, reduced deforestation operations by 30 percent, and environmental fines have dropped by 65 percent. first semester.

Now, due to the international clamor of wildfires ravaging the jungle, the government will study next week to present a package of measures to protect the environment and combat deforestation, with sustainable proposals for the future. farm, animal and mining. The project is led by the chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, who will visit the region on Monday to discuss this project with the governors of the Amazon states, who have already met Bolsonaro this week in Brasilia and, despite the questions that the President had done an international aid, he had been told that he should not give up these funds.