Section:GDN 1N PaGe:24 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 19:06 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Thursday 8 August 2019
24Kate Connolly
BerlinA catastrophic combination of heat,
drought, storms, forest fi res, beetle
plagues and a fungi blight this year
ha s destroyed more than 1,430 sq km
(552 sq miles) of German forest.
Forests are one of the most effi cient
ways to reduce carbon dioxide levels,
and in Germany alone they are able to
absorb 62 m tonnes a year – about 7%
of its annual CO2 emissions.
Forests have also been at the heart
of Germany’s cultural identity for
centuries and politicians are now
seizing the issue – known as Walds-
terben (dying forest) – as a top priority.
The agricultur e minister, Julia
Klöckner , has announced a forest sum-
mit will be held next month, at which
national forestry and climate experts
are to agree on a multi million-euroaction plan. Klöckner has pledged
€500m (£460m), to be paid out of
the government’s energy and climate
fund, to fi nance it.
“Our forests are massively dam-
aged,” she said, visiting Moritzburg
near Dresden, which has been badly
hit, many of its trees brown and dying,
mainly because of drought and beetle
infestations. “Only if everyone unites
will we manage the mammoth task
that lies ahead of us – to save our
forests not only for ourselves but for
future generations .”
The association for the protection of
German forests, SDW, says trees being
lost at the most rapid rate are those
that make up the bulk of the forests,
including spruces and firs, pines,
beeches and oaks. In last year’s dry
summer and this year’s, there has been
a rainwater shortfall of 200 litres per
sq metre, according to SDW. This is the
driest it has been for 50 years, says theGermany
wakes up
to reality
of forest
emergency
that is no
fairytale
Deforestation rate
in Amazon soars
as condemnation
of Bolsonaro grows
Tom Phillips
Latin America correspondentDeforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
“exploded” in July with an estimated
2,254 sq km (870 sq miles) of forest
cleared, according to preliminary data
gathered by Brazil’s National Institute
for Space Research, the government
agency that monitors deforestation.
The reported deforestation rep-
resents a 278% rise on the 59 7 sq km
destroyed in July 2018 – the biggest
surge in deforestation rates since the
institute adopted its current method-
ology in 2014.
Romulo Batista, a Greenpeace cam-
paigner based in the Amazon city of
Manaus, said the numbers reported
in the Estado de São Paulo newspaper,
while preliminary, were troubling and
showed a clear trend of rising deforest-
ation under President Jair Bolsonaro.
What was not yet clear was if the dev-
astation was “going up, going up a lot,
or skyrocketing”.
Batista blamed Bolsonaro’s “anti-
environmental” discourse and policies- such as slashing the budget of Brazil’s
environmental agency, Ibama – for
the surge.
“It’s almost as if a licen ce to deforest
illegally and with impunity has been
given, now that you have the [envi-
ronmental] inspection and control
teams being attacked by no less than
the president of the republic and the
environment minister,” Batista added.
“This is a very worrying moment.”
Bolsonaro scoff ed at his portrayal
as Brazil’s “Captain Chainsaw” and
mocked Emmanuel Macron and
Angela Merkel for challenging him
over the devastation this week.
Speaking in São Paulo, he said:
“They still haven’t realised Brazil’s
under new management”. The far-
right populist repeated claims that his
administration – which critics accuse
of helping unleash a new wave of
environmental destruction – was the
victim of a mendacious international
smear campaign based on “impre-
cise” satellite data showing a jump in
deforestation.
The spike in destruction under
Bolsonaro – who was elected with
the support of powerful mining
and agricultural sectors – has come
as a shock to environmentalists,
but not a surprise. During a visit to
the Amazon last year , he told the
Guardian that he would target “cow-
ardly” environmental NGOs who were
“sticking their noses” into Brazil’s
domestic aff airs.
“This tomfoolery stops right
here!” Bolsonaro proclaimed, prais-
ing Donald Trump’s approval of the
Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil
pipelines in the US.
Bolsonaro returned to that theme
on Tuesday during a gathering of car
dealers in Brazil’s economic capital,
São Paulo, complaining that “60%
of our territory is rendered unusa-
ble by indigenous reserves and other
environmental questions”. About 60%
of the Amazon rainforest, the world’s
biggest, lies in Brazil.
Referring to the recent G20 sum-
mit, Bolsonaro added: “You can’t
imagine how much I enjoyed talking
to Macron and Angela Merkel [about
these issues ],” bringing laughter from
the crowd. “What a pleasure!”
In recent weeks, Brazil’s globally
respected National Institute for Space
Research has found itself at the eye of a
political storm as a result of the incon-
venient truths revealed by its data.
Earlier this month, with alarm
growing about the consequences of
the intensifying assault on the Ama-
zon, its director, Ricardo Galvão, was
sacked after pushing back against
Bolsonaro’s claim that he was peddling
lies about the state of the Amazon.
Galvão’s successor, the air force
colonel Darcton Policarpo Damião,
looks set to follow a more Bolsonarian
line. In an interview this week, Damião
said he was not convinced global heat-
ing was a phenomenon caused by
humans and called such matters “not
my cup of tea”.278%
The amount by which deforestation
rose last month compared with July
2018, according to Brazil’s monitors60%
The proportion of Amazon rainforest
that lies in Brazil. Deforestation has
accelerated under Jair BolsonaroРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS