Brazil’s ‘Donald Trump’ Threatens Grave Destruction of the Amazon and Genocide for Indigenous Tribes
Alex Pietrowski, Staff Writer
Waking Times
Brazil’s recently elected president, Jair Bolsonaro, is often referred to as Brazil’s Donald Trump because he represents what many consider to be the far-right ideologies of nationalism, corporatism, and indifference toward the environment, culture and the poor.
Having been exceptionally controversial for many years, Bolsonaro’s election now puts him in an extraordinary position of influence over the Amazon rainforest and the many indigenous peoples that still live there in primitive cultures. All of this would create a unique and special kind of disaster for the Amazon, as Brazil encompasses the largest masses of untouched forests.
During his campaign and since his election, several of his public statements indicate that he is determined to clearcut huge areas of the Amazon in order to make way for more cattle ranching and more monoculture industrial agriculture. The cost of this would be felt most immediately by the indigenous tribes directly affected by the loss of sacred forested land.
In 2017, he was recorded on the campaign trail making a statement that now can be seen as a direct threat of genocide to any minorities who would refuse to assimilate and go along with such new economic plans for Brazil.
From Return to Now:
Along with his pledge to sell off their rainforest home to agribusiness and mining, Bolsonaro has said openly “minorities will have to adapt … or simply disappear”
Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, campaigned on a plan to sell off major portions of the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness, mining. and hydro-power.
“Minorities have to adapt to the majority, or simply disappear,” he said on the campaign trail, adding that under his administration, “not one square centimeter” of Brazil will be reserved for the country’s indigenous peoples.
These statements are quite unsettling if you’re concerned at all for the loss of rainforest, the extinction of animal and plant species and the protection of the world’s most innocent and organic cultures. Brazil is home to the majority of the world’s remaining uncontacted tribes, and Bolsonaro has stated that he intends to auction off much of their land to international corporations.
Sara Burrows of Return to Now elaborates further:
Thirteen percent of the land in Brazil is protected indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest, where most of the world’s last uncontacted tribes take refuge. Bolsonaro has said he wants to put all of that land on the auction block.
Since his election on October 28, he’s announced a merging of the ministries of agriculture and the environment — the latter of which was supposed regulate the former — into a new “super ministry” to oversee his plan.
The new ministry will be headed by politicians from the “beef caucus,” a group of lawmakers who have historically opposed indigenous land conservation, supported agricultural expansion, and attempted to relax slave labor laws.
Not only is this a grave attack on the human rights of Brazil’s indigenous people, but also on their ability to continue acting as the best defenders of the world’s forests,” writes Becca Warner, an environmentalism journalist for The Ecologist.
“We need all the forest we can get, to capture carbon from the atmosphere and keep it locked away,” she says. “In fact, scientists agree that halting deforestation is just as urgent as reducing emissions.”
Bolsonaro should have little trouble pushing his agenda through Congress, as it is currently dominated by a three-wing political alliance known as the Bancadas do Boi, do Bíblia e da Bala.
In English, those are the political representatives of “Beef” (ranching and agribusiness), the “Bible” (religious conservatives) and “Bullet” (the military).
Indigenous peoples and their supporters say the new push to open protected forested lands to agriculture and mining has clear genocidal implications.
More than 20 land rights activists have been killed in Brazil so far this year, with most deaths linked to conflicts over logging and agribusiness
Fifty land rights campaigners were killed in Brazil last year for trying to protect forests from illegal logging and the expansion of cattle ranches and soy plantations, according to Global Witness.
Read more articles by Alex Pietrowski
About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.
This article (Brazil’s ‘Donald Trump’ Threatens Grave Destruction of the Amazon and Genocide for Indigenous Tribes) originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowski and WakingTimes.com.