Amazon fires: G7 to release funds for fire-fighting planes

  • 2019-08-26 17:22:08
International leaders at the G7 summit have agreed to provide logistical and financial support to help fight fires in the Amazon rainforest. French President Emmanuel Macron said G7 countries would release $22m (£18m). However, President Jair Bolsonaro said Mr Macron's plan of an "alliance" to "save" the Amazon treated Brazil "as if we were a colony or no man's land". A record number of fires is burning in Brazil, mostly in the Amazon, according to the country's space research agency. The funding pledge was announced as the leaders of the G7 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US - continue to meet in Biarritz, France. Mr Macron said the funds would be made available "immediately" - primarily to pay for more fire-fighting planes - and that France would also "offer concrete support with military in the region within the next few hours". However, Mr Bolsonaro - who has been engaged in a public row with Mr Macron in recent weeks - accused the French leader of launching "unreasonable and gratuitous attacks against the Amazon region", and "hiding his intentions behind the idea of an 'alliance' of G7 countries". He wrote on Twitter that Brazil's sovereignty should be respected - and said he had discussed with Colombia's president the need for "a joint plan" from the countries that actually made up the Amazon region. Despite Mr Bolsonaro's comments, his environment minister, Ricardo Salles, told reporters that the funding was welcome, Reuters news agency reports. President Macron last week described the fires as an "international crisis" and pushed for them to be prioritised at the G7 summit which his country is hosting. G7 leaders also intend to discuss plans to reforest the Amazon, at the United Nations general assembly meeting in September. The severity of the fires, and the response by Brazil's government, has prompted a global outcry and protests. According to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), more than 75,000 fires have been recorded in Brazil so far in 2019, most of them in the Amazon region. Critics have accused Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro, of "green lighting" the Amazon's destruction through anti-environmental rhetoric and a lack of action on deforestation violations.  

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