World Bank, dictatorship and the Amazon: the history of deforestation in Brazil

During the 1980s a series of shocking images and films appeared of massive devastation underway in the Amazonian state of Rondonia. There, an area of old growth rainforest roughly equivalent to the size of Great Britain was being ripped down at record rate. As the fires generated huge smoke clouds, thousands of indigenous people who had been living in the forest died off at the hands of the ranchers and farmers, gunned down, poisoned or deliberately infected with smallpox.

Bolsonaro – “the chainsaw President” – is destroying the Amazon

The President of Brazil's Workers Party (PT), Gleisi Hoffman, has denounced Jair Bolsonaro’s destruction of the Amazon rainforest in a recent speech made in August 2019 which can be read in full below. Under Bolsonaro’s Presidency deforestation has been actively encouraged with disastrous results for Brazil and the entire world. The Brazilian people are resisting Bolsonaro’s environmentally destructive policies. As fires rage through the Amazon rainforest President Bolsonaro personal disapproval rating has reached an all-time high

Bolsonaro, Trump and the growing axis of climate change denial

The rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil represents a terrible blow in the international struggle to prevent runaway climate change.