President Jair Bolsonaro is framed by the national flag of Brazil. Recently, his “popularity is falling because people feel baffled by the things he is doing and saying”, according to one conservative columnist. Photo: Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty Images
President Jair Bolsonaro is framed by the national flag of Brazil. Recently, his “popularity is falling because people feel baffled by the things he is doing and saying”, according to one conservative columnist. Photo: Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty Images

By Dom Phillips
19 July 2019

BRASÍLIA (The Guardian) – The Amazon belongs to Brazil and European countries can mind their own business because they have already destroyed their own environment, said Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who also described his own government’s satellite data showing an alarming rise in deforestation as “lies”.

“You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil’s, not yours,” Bolsonaro said on Friday. “If all this devastation you accuse us of doing was done in the past the Amazon would have stopped existing, it would be a big desert.”

But Brazil is opening to partnerships exploiting biodiversity and mining – even in Amazon areas, said Bolsonaro, during a wide-ranging, one-hour conversation with foreign journalists.

He also said he was “fulfilling a mission from God”, defended his decision to name his own son as Brazil’s ambassador to the US and described Brexit as “the will of the people” – although he admitted he had never heard of the UK’s likely next prime minister, Boris Johnson.

It was the first time Bolsonaro had invited foreign journalists to his weekly media breakfast and he entered the room with a breezy “good morning” – in English.

But he then accused the international press of misrepresenting his administration which has been plagued by internal power struggles and plummeting approval ratings and said foreign reporters missed “corrupt governments” of the past.

“Most of the foreign press has a completely distorted image of who I am and what I intend to do here with our policies and for the future of our Brazil,” he said. “I perfectly understand the level of the poisoning that is done to Brazil by the foreign press.”

His affable mood changed when questions turned to the Amazon, and he stared ahead or scribbled notes on a napkin as he was pushed on deforestation. Bolsonaro has come under fire for attacking the country’s environment agencies and declaring plans to open up indigenous reserves – some of the best protected in the Amazon – to mining.

“We understand the importance of the Amazon for the world – but the Amazon is ours. There will not be any more of that sort of policy that we saw in the past that was terrible for everyone,” he said. “We preserve more [rainforest] than anyone. No country in the world has the moral right to talk about the Amazon. You destroyed your own ecosystems.”

Foreigners complaining about his plans to open up indigenous reserves to mining showed a lack of respect for the human rights of Brazil’s indigenous people, Bolsonaro said.

“You want the indigenous people to carry on like prehistoric men with no access to technology, science, information, and the wonders of modernity,” he said. “Indigenous people want to work, they want to produce and they can’t. They live isolated in their areas like cavemen. What most of the foreign press do to Brazil and against these human beings is a crime.”

He even questioned recent satellite data from the government’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) that indicated a dramatic rise in deforestation in May and June. “I am convinced the data is a lie. We are going to call the president of INPE here to talk about this and that’s the end of that issue,” he said. [more]

Bolsonaro declares ‘the Amazon is ours’ and calls deforestation data ‘lies’