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T HE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019 | 3

World

Seeing the global panic last week over

thousands of forest fires in the Amazon,

and hearing the calls to boycott Brazil-

ian products, Agamenon da Silva

Menezes wondered if the world had

gone mad.

Mr. da Silva is a farmers’ union leader

in Novo Progresso, a community in a

heavily deforested state in northern

Brazil, and he considers the fires burn-

ing in the region a normal part of life. It’s

how some farmers clear land to make a

living, and a natural result of the dry

season.

“We’re going to continue producing

here in the Amazon, and we’re going to

continue feeding the world,” Mr. da Silva

said in an interview. “There’s no need

for all this outrage.”

In Novo Progresso, as in many parts

of Brazil, there is strong support for

President Jair Bolsonaro’s policy on the

Amazon, which prioritizes economic de-

velopment over environmental protec-

tion.

These Brazilians argue that fire and

deforestation are essential to keep small

farmers and large ranches that export

beef and soy to the world in business,

and that the damage they do to the

world’s largest rainforest is modest.

Further, they are indignant at what

they see as the colonialist attitude of out-

siders who try to decide how Brazilians

should steward their own land.

Mr. Bolsonaro on Monday said in a

Twitter message that Brazil would not

accept demands to “ ‘save’ the Amazon,

as if we were a colony or no-man’s land.”

This month, a group of farmers, loggers

and business owners in Novo Progresso

and elsewhere announced they would

be setting coordinated fires as a show of

force by industries that resent enforce-

ment of environmental laws.

The global outrage was set off by an

announcement last week by a Brazilian

agency of a big increase in wildfires in

the Amazon this year — more than

26,000 forest fires have been recorded

so far this month, the highest number in

a decade. And it has found a target in

Brazil’s contentious leader, Mr. Bol-

sonaro, who has vowed to make it easier

for industries to gain access to protected

land.

The Amazon fires were a prime con-

cern of leaders in the Group of 7 industri-

alized nations, who gathered in Biarritz,

France, last weekend. Spurred by Presi-

dent Emmanuel Macron of France, who

last week warned that “our house is

burning,” Group of 7 countries pledged

to earmark $20 million to help Brazil

contain the fires.

The actor Leonardo DiCaprio also an-

nounced that Earth Alliance, an envi-

ronmental organization he helps lead,

had pledged $5 million in funding to pro-

tect the Amazon.

Agriculture has long been a mainstay

of Brazil’s economy, and farming and

fires here often go hand in hand. Most

are controlled blazes intended to clear

land for crops and cattle grazing.

But deforestation has been surging in

Brazil as Mr. Bolsonaro has relaxed en-

forcement of environmental laws and

land grabbing has risen. The fires tear-

ing through vast swaths of the Amazon

region this year are one result, experts

s a y.

As the world’s largest rainforest, the

Amazon is home to a fifth of the earth’s

supply of fresh water. And it serves as an

important “carbon sink,” soaking up

carbon dioxide and helping keep global

temperatures from rising.

That has led many world leaders and

environmentalists to see the Amazon as

an invaluable piece of world heritage

that must be zealously conserved.

But that claim has long bothered

many residents of the Amazon, and en-

raged nationalist politicians like Mr. Bol-

sonaro, a far-right former Army captain

who bristled at the idea that protecting

the rainforest is a global imperative.

Andre Pagliarini, a Brazilian histori-

an, said that international pressure to

conserve the Amazon may backfire if it

stokes fears that wealthier nations want

to keep the Amazon pristine to stymie

Brazil’s growth — or to appropriate its

wealth for themselves. That view was

prevalent when the country’s military

rulers set in motion an ambitious devel-

opment plan for the rainforest during

the 1960s and 1970s.

“All this talk of foreign collaboration

in preserving the Amazon may be well-

intentioned, it may be genuine, but it

touches a raw nerve in Brazil: the notion

that wealthier foreigners want to chip

away at Brazil’s authority over the Ama-

zon,” said Mr. Pagliarini, who will be lec-

turing at Dartmouth College next fall.

Gelson Dill, the deputy mayor of Novo

Progresso, traces his roots in the area to

the 1970s, when his family was among

thousands that heeded the call of mili-

tary leaders to settle in the Amazon and

develop the land by cutting down forest.

“We have to remember that the peo-

ple who came here from the South, the

Northeast, the Southeast, were brought

here by the federal government, which

called on people to come occupy this re-

gion,” Mr. Dill said. “Then it abandoned

the people here and now it wants to call

these people criminals.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Ama-

zon began shrinking gradually as farm-

ers, miners and loggers cleared swaths

of land to grow crops, raise cattle or sell

property. It was a way to make money in

a region with high rates of unemploy-

ment, tremendous poverty and little

presence of the state.

“What’s the scheme? You appropriate

land and sell it,” said Maurício Torres, a

professor at the Federal University of

Pará, a northern state that includes

Novo Progresso. “The land is made 50,

100, 200 times as valuable once it has

been deforested. It’s an excellent busi-

ness. You’re selling public land, right, so

it’s all profit.”

But as Brazil created a vast patch-

work of national reserves and indige-

nous territories starting in the 1980s, it

became harder to appropriate land.

During the 2000s, as deforestation

soared, the Brazilian government set in

motion an ambitious plan to slow down

the rate at which the rainforest was be-

ing destroyed. But that effort, which re-

lied heavily on aggressive law enforce-

ment operations, has lost traction in re-

cent years.

A languishing economy pushed thou-

sands of unemployed people deep into

the forest. As a deep recession dragged

on, the country’s reliance on the power-

ful agricultural sector grew, as did that

sector’s political muscle in Congress.

Gradually, the government eased pres-

sure on lawbreakers.

Many in the Amazon — and their rep-

resentatives in Brasília, the capital —

believe that strict rules to protect the

forest are holding the country, and the

local economy, back. With pledges to

curb environmental protection, Mr. Bol-

sonaro won 52 percent of the vote in the

states that encompass the Amazon.

“The abandonment of the people in

these regions pushed them to a relation-

ship of dependence with land grabbers

and illegal loggers,” Mr. Torres said.

“They end up serving as a social shield

to local criminal organizations.”

Hélio Dias, the head of the Agriculture

Federation in Rondônia, one of the

states that was hit hardest by the fires,

said Brazil has designated too much of

its territory as protected lands.

“If we were to designate 40 percent of

land for production and conserved 60

percent, that would be ideal for

producers,” he said. “That would repre-

sent an equilibrium between man and

the forest.”

Mr. Dias said this year’s fires have

been unusually widespread, which he

said has caused property damage and

other problems for growers. But he at-

tributes the fires mainly to drought, and

scoffed at the notion that it justifies a

boycott of Brazilian products. “It is com-

pletely misguided,” he said.

Some residents in fire-scarred areas

expressed alarm. José Macedo de Silva,

a cattle farmer near Porto Velho, the

capital city of Rondônia, said most of the

fires in his area were started by people

involved in land disputes. “I’m against

illegal deforestation, against invading

environmental protection areas,” he

said, as he stood by a patch of his own

land that had been scorched. “People

who do that need to be punished. Brazil

is going to pay the price over our incom-

petence in dealing with these people.”

Mr. da Silva, the farmers’ union leader

in Novo Progresso, believes Mr. Bol-

sonaro should stay the course and not

bow to pressure from European leaders

or give in to threats of boycotting Brazil-

ian goods.

“We’re not going to surrender control

of the Amazon, and that’s a fact,” he said.

“We have cheap, good-quality products

to sell. If they don’t want to buy them,

we’ll sell to China and other places.”

A forest fire in Porto Velho, Brazil. Some Brazilians say that fire and deforestation are essential to keep small farmers and large ranches that export beef and soy in business.

VICTOR MORIYAMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Defiant in the Amazon

RIO DE JANEIRO

Farmers argue forest fires

are a normal occurrence,

rebuking global outrage

BY MANUELA ANDREONI

AND ERNESTO LONDOÑO

Victor Moriyama contributed reporting

in Porto Velho, Brazil.

Talk of foreign collaboration

in preserving the rainforest may

be well-intentioned and genuine,

but it is touching a raw nerve.

What began as an argument over fires

raging in the Amazon rainforest has

quickly turned into an intensely person-

al verbal feud between President Jair

Bolsonaro of Brazil and President Em-

manuel Macron.

The back and forth reached a new

pitch after Mr. Bolsonaro made a sarcas-

tic comment on a Facebook post mock-

ing the physical appearance of the

French president’s wife.

Mr. Macron hit back with condescen-

sion. He called Mr. Bolsonaro “sad” and

ill behaved. He even went so far as to say

that he hoped Brazil would soon have a

different leader.

Mr. Macron has emerged as one of the

world leaders most critical of Mr. Bol-

sonaro, a far-right populist and climate

change skeptic, who has been accused

of encouraging deforestation. Scrutiny

of his policies has intensified as interna-

tional attention has turned to the devas-

tating fires ravaging the rainforest,

many of them intentionally set to clear

land.

Last week, Mr. Macron called the fires

a global crisis that should be addressed

at the summit meeting of the Group of 7

industrialized nations in Biarritz,

France, which concluded on Monday.

Mr. Bolsonaro accused Mr. Macron of

having a “colonialist mind-set” and told

him to stay out of Brazilian business.

The French president then accused

his Brazilian counterpart of lying about

his commitment to fighting climate

change, and said that he would oppose a

major trade deal negotiated between

the European Union and South Ameri-

can nations.

Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to retreat

somewhat on Friday, agreeing to deploy

the military to fight the fires.

But on Sunday, he responded to a

Facebook post left by a supporter that

mocked the appearance of Mr. Macron’s

wife, Brigitte Macron, and featured a

photo of the two leaders and their wives

side by side.

“Now you understand why Macron is

persecuting Bolsonaro?” the supporter

wrote on Facebook. A comment under

Mr. Bolsonaro’s name replied: “Do not

humiliate the guy, ha ha.” It is unclear if

Mr. Bolsonaro posted the comment him-

self.

Mr. Macron responded to the insult on

Monday in the same news conference in

which he announced an aid package by

Group of 7 member states worth $20 mil-

lion to combat the fires in the Amazon.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s comment was “ex-

tremely rude,” Mr. Macron said, adding:

“Above all, it’s sad for him and the Bra-

zilian people.”

“I think that the Brazilian people, who

are a great people, are a bit ashamed to

see these attitudes,” he added. “And be-

cause I have a lot of friendship and re-

spect for the Brazilian people, I hope

that they will very quickly have a presi-

dent who behaves properly.”

A short time later, Mr. Bolsonaro

posted a series of furious messages on

Twitter denouncing the Group of 7

moves to protect the rainforest, and say-

ing that he and the president of Bolivia

intended to come up with their own plan

to combat the blazes.

“We can’t accept that a president, Ma-

cron, fire baseless and gratuitous at-

tacks at the Amazon, nor that he dis-

guise his intentions behind the idea of an

‘alliance’ of G-7 countries to ‘save’ the

Amazon, as if we were a colony or a no-

man’s land,” he wrote.

He added that “respect for the

sovereignty of any country is the least

that can be expected in a civilized

world.”

Mr. Macron has been the target of vit-

riol from others in Mr. Bolsonaro’s circle.

In a Twitter post on Sunday, Abraham

Weintraub, the Brazilian education min-

ister, called the French president an “op-

portunistic clown” who was “not up to

the challenge” and had caved in to the

“French agriculture lobby” over the

trade deal.

Mr. Bolsonaro has called for opening

forest land to mining, logging, farming

and ranching, and environmentalists

say he has emboldened people to exploit

the region, legally or not. They say his

policies are the main driver of a sharp

increase in fires and deforestation this

year.

A too-personal dig,

and a sharp retort

PARIS

BY AURELIEN BREEDEN

AND MEGAN SPECIA

ERALDO PERES/ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Jair Bolsonaro, top, and President Emmanuel Macron of France, above, had

argued about the fires in the Amazon rainforest before the dispute reached a new pitch.

POOL PHOTO BY LUDOVIC MARIN

Emmanuel Macron lashed out

after a Facebook post by Jair

Bolsonaro of Brazil insulted the

French president’s wife.

The bodies were spread out across the

grass — a dozen of them, legs stiff as

twigs. Not a survivor could be found, it

seemed, until Shai Ager saw some

rustling. It was a joey just big enough to

hop, trying to climb back into her dead

mother’s pouch.

The next morning, in the same sports

field near Cairns, in northeastern Aus-

tralia, Ms. Ager, an ecologist with a wal-

laby rescue group, found three more of

the marsupials. This time they were still

alive. Barely.

“They were frothing at the mouth,”

she said. “I sat with them as they died.”

Who or what killed the little ones is a

mystery, but with 37 wallabies having

been found dead in less than a week, res-

cuers have begun to suspect foul play.

The local authorities are investigating.

A toxicology report is expected in the

next few days.

In the meantime, rescuers like Ms.

Ager are conducting their own informal

inquiry, and as is often the case in the

age-old battle of humans and their hous-

ing versus wildlife habitat, the clues

keep pointing to the top of the food

chain.

There’s history, for one. In January of

last year, in the same Cairns suburb,

Trinity Beach, 17 wallabies were found

dead in the span of two days. The police

said that at least five of them — discov-

ered on the same sports field as the wal-

labies found in recent days — seemed to

have been shot with a rifle.

Then there are the eyes. In a video

posted early this week to Facebook by

rescuers, some of the dead wallabies

have milky white eyes, hinting at possi-

ble poisoning.

And finally, there are the fences.

The species at issue is the agile wal-

laby, the most common wallaby in north-

ern Australia. Because they are not wel-

come on the sports field, rescuers put in

one-way fences, which let them out

should they find a way in. Over the past

week, rescuers said, the fences have

been broken. One morning, 50 wallabies

were seen in the field, soaking up the

morning sun.

So did someone break the fences to in-

vite them in, angering another neighbor

who killed them? Or was it the same per-

son or group? No one yet knows. Ms.

Ager, 21, said the authorities were also

looking into the long-shot possibility

that airborne bacteria had killed the ani-

mals.

What’s clear now, though, is that

strong feelings about the wallabies are

not likely to subside.

In October, there will be a court hear-

ing about whether to move the wallaby

population outside the city.

Ms. Ager and other rescuers said

housing development has taken away

the wallabies’ bushland, and that they

need to be brought to a place that she de-

scribed as “wallaby heaven” — on earth.

For some reason, she said, that idea

seems to be inspiring violence.

“I’ve seen some crazy people here

over the past two years,” she said. “I had

to get a court order because one person

wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Foul play suspected in killing of wallabies in northern Australia

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

BY DAMIEN CAVE

Dozens of wallabies have been found dead in the same area near Cairns, Australia.

SHAI AGER

“They were frothing at the mouth.

I sat with them as they died.”

RELEASED

laby rescue group, found three more of

RELEASED

laby rescue group, found three more of

the marsupials. This time they were still

RELEASED

the marsupials. This time they were still

alive. Barely.

RELEASED

alive. Barely.

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RELEASED

“They were frothing at the mouth,”

she said. “I sat with them as they died.”

RELEASED

she said. “I sat with them as they died.”

BY

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