The Amazon is burning. "The lungs of the planet" are being choked by smoke from a historic number of fires — many, if not most, of them set illegally to clear land for agricultural production.
Facing an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions and in need of international assistance, Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, has instead lashed out at critics and endangered, as a result, a trade agreement recently concluded between the European Union and Mercosur, the group of South America's largest trading nations. The price of economic development must not be planetary destruction. A compromise must be reached that allows Brazilian farmers and ranchers to benefit from global trade without endangering the climate.
Data from Brazil's own National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has revealed more than 72,000 fires from January to Aug. 20, an 83 percent increase over the same period last year. Sometimes the fires have natural causes, triggered by lightening strikes; more often, however, they are set deliberately by farmers and ranchers to clear land for agriculture. Many observers believe Bolsonaro's development policies — he has urged the country "to use the riches that God has given us" — have spurred this year's increase: INPE has reckoned that deforestation in the Amazon increased 380 percent over last year.