SAO PAULO - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro claimed on Friday that Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio financed fires being set in the Amazon rainforest, without presenting any evidence, the right-wing leader's latest broadside in casting blame over forest fires that have generated international concern.
"This Leonardo DiCaprio is a cool guy, right? Giving money to torch the Amazon," Bolsonaro said on Friday during brief remarks in front of the presidential residence.
Bolsonaro appeared to be commenting on social media postings claiming that the environmental organization the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had paid for images taken by volunteer firefighters that it then supposedly used to solicit donations, including a $500,000 contribution from DiCaprio.
The Brazilian leader talked about DiCaprio on Thursday during a live webcast. The president said the WWF paid the firefighting NGO to take pictures of forest fires in the Amazon.
"So what did the NGO do? What is the easiest thing? Set fire to the forest. Take pictures, make a video," the president said. "(WWF) makes a campaign against Brazil, it contacts Leonardo DiCaprio, he donates $500,000."
"A part of that went to the people that were setting fires. Leonardo DiCaprio, you are contributing to the fire in the Amazon, that won't do," Bolsonaro said.
The WWF has denied receiving a donation from DiCaprio or obtaining photos from the firefighters.
DiCaprio denied having donated to the WWF. In a statement, the actor lauded "the people of Brazil working to save their natural and cultural heritage." But, he said, "While worthy of support, we did not fund the organizations targeted."
DiCaprio has been an outspoken advocate on behalf of combating climate change, speaking frequently about environmental issues including the Amazon forest fires. His Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which is focused on projects that "protect vulnerable wildlife from extinction," is part of the Earth Alliance.
Four members of the nongovernmental organization Alter do Chão Fire Brigade were arrested on Tuesday with police accusing them of purposefully setting fires in order to document them and drum up more donations. They were released on Thursday on a judge's order.
Politicians and other NGOs fiercely criticized the arrest, saying it was part of a concerted attempt by Bolsonaro's government to harass environmental groups.
Scientists and activists blame land speculators, farmers and ranchers for setting the fires to clear land for agricultural use, saying that deforesters are being emboldened by Bolsonaro's rhetoric of promoting development and farming over preservation.
The Amazon rainforest is considered a bulwark against global climate change.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly lashed out at various factions in casting blame for the forest fires.
In a Facebook live post on Aug. 21, he said, "everything indicates" that NGOs were going to the Amazon to "set fire" to the forest. When asked then if he had evidence to back up his claims, Bolsonaro said he had "no written plan," adding, "that's not how it's done."
One day later he admitted that farmers could be illegally setting the rainforest ablaze, but roughly a month later he attacked the "lying media" for saying that the rainforest was being devastated by the fires.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SINGAPORE -- A brutal Indonesian forest fire season that left Southeast Asia choking in smog has renewed scrutiny of major palm oil and paper companies, with activists accusing them of breaking promises to halt logging.
The monster blazes sent a pall of acrid smoke over the region for weeks, closing schools and airports and causing a spike in respiratory ailments.
Mostly lit to clear land for agriculture, they were the worst seen in the country since 2015.
Leading companies have in recent years pledged not to log any more pristine rainforest, not to use burning to clear land and to cut ties with smaller suppliers who don't abide by their rules -- but critics say such vows now ring hollow.
"They do not live up to the commitments, and are not addressing the fact that we are now in a climate crisis," Annisa Rahmawati, a senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace, told AFP.
"They are still doing business as usual."
Industry players, however, insist they have gone to great lengths to stop burning and trees being cut down in their operations.
Singapore-listed Wilmar International, the world's biggest palm oil trader, committed in 2013 to a no-deforestation policy and says it has stopped sourcing from 17 suppliers that did not comply with their rules.
Production of Palm oil -- used in numerous everyday goods from shampoo to biscuits -- has been blamed by environmentalists for driving massive deforestation.
Consumer goods companies are paying more attention to where they source palm oil and other materials.
Some of the world's largest brands -- including Nestle and Unilever -- pledged in 2010 to reach net zero deforestation within a decade through "responsible sourcing" of cattle, palm oil, soya and other commodities.
But after that pledge was signed, the pace of tree-felling linked to commodities increased dramatically and at least 50 million hectares of forest worldwide has been destroyed Greenpeace said -- an area about the size of Spain.
Firestarters
Fires are used as a cheap way to clear agricultural land in Indonesia every year during the dry season.
Experts say it is hard to know who is responsible for the blazes in the hardest-hit areas -- Indonesia's Sumatra island and the Indonesian part of Borneo -- which are home to myriad companies of varying sizes and numerous small-scale farmers.
Big firms insist they have "no-burn" policies in place and often blame smallholders for starting fires they say then spread to their plantations.
Indonesia has made some arrests over the blazes but in many cases it remains unclear who started the fires -- and who ordered them.
While larger companies have vowed not to source from smaller ones that break strict environmental rules, critics say they are not monitoring their supply chains carefully.
"The biggest challenge is the industry-wide lack of traceability of the origins of palm fruit," said Nur Maliki Arifiandi, from WWF Indonesia.
"This has allowed continuing deforestation, often caused by real smallholders as well as land speculators and rich, powerful people to open more natural forest areas and plant illegal oil palm plantations."
Some industry watchers say commitments by big firms have helped and official figures show the rate of forest loss in Indonesia declined in recent years.
Burning issue
But critics say problems persist -- this week Greenpeace said in a new report that palm oil and pulpwood companies with links to land burned between 2015 and 2018 rarely faced serious government sanctions.
And last year the NGO accused palm-oil giant Wilmar, as well as other consumer brands including Colgate-Palmolive, Hershey, Nestle, and Unilever, of continuing to buy from groups that were destroying the rainforest.
At the end of 2018 Wilmar, Unilever and Mondelez committed to a mapping and monitoring platform for the palm oil sector, which Greenpeace supported at the time as a potential breakthrough in cleaning up supply chains.
But the NGO pulled out of the project last month, saying the companies were not serious about the project.
Wilmar insists it sticks to its commitments and says it continues to work towards a supply chain free from deforestation from 2020.
Activists, however, doubt such goals are within reach.
"We are asking companies to be more serious in implementing their targets on the ground," WWF Indonesia's Arifiandi said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has arrested nearly 200 people over vast forest fires ripping across the archipelago, police said Monday, as toxic haze sends air quality levels plummeting and sparks flight cancellations.
Jakarta has deployed thousands of personnel to battle blazes that are turning land into charred landscapes and consuming forests in Sumatra and Borneo islands, where thousands of schools have been shut over health fears.
The fires -- usually started by illegal burning to clear land for farming -- have unleashed choking haze across Southeast Asia, triggering diplomatic tensions with Indonesia's neighbors.
On Monday, authorities said they had arrested some 185 people suspected of being involved in activities that led to out-of-control fires sweeping the country.
"Indonesian Police will enforce the law against anyone who is proven to have carried out forest and land burning, whether it was done intentionally or through negligence," National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told reporters in Jakarta.
"This is a last resort. The most important thing is prevention."
Four corporations were also being investigated, he added.
Last week, Indonesia sealed off dozens of plantations where smog-belching fires were blazing, and warned that owners -- including Malaysia and Singapore-based firms -- could face criminal charges if there was evidence of illegal burning.
Some of the most serious fires occur in peatlands, which are highly combustible when drained of water to be converted into agricultural plantations.
Thick haze in Borneo -- where air quality levels have plummeted to "dangerous" levels in some areas -- caused the cancellation of about a dozen flights Sunday, national airline Garuda said.
Rival Lion Air said about 160 Borneo flights had been affected at the weekend.
Meanwhile, nearly 150,000 people have been treated for acute respiratory infections linked to the haze in recent months, according to Indonesian health authorities.
While forest fires are an annual problem, the situation this year has been worsened by drier weather in Indonesia, with diplomatic tensions soaring as toxic smog drifts over to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.
The haze pushed Singapore's air quality to unhealthy levels for the first time in three years at the weekend.
In 2015, Indonesia suffered its worst forest fires for almost two decades, which dramatically increased its greenhouse gas emissions.
Huge fires tearing through the Amazon are also compounding concerns about the long-term impact of such blazes on keeping global temperature levels stable.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
BRASILIA - Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil's space research center INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy.
The surge marks an 83 percent increase over the same period of 2018, the agency said on Tuesday, and is the highest since records began in 2013.
Since Thursday, INPE said satellite images spotted 9,507 new forest fires in the country, mostly in the Amazon basin, home to the world's largest tropical forest seen as vital to countering global warming.
Images show the northernmost state of Roraima covered in dark smoke. Amazonas declared an emergency in the south of the state and in its capital Manaus on Aug. 9. Acre, on the border with Peru, has been on environmental alert since Friday due to the fires.
Wildfires have increased in Mato Grosso and Para, two states where Brazil's agricultural frontier has pushed into the Amazon basin and spurred deforestation. Wildfires are common in the dry season, but are also deliberately set by farmers illegally deforesting land for cattle ranching.
The unprecedented surge in wildfires has occurred since Bolsonaro took office in January vowing to develop the Amazon region for farming and mining, ignoring international concern over increased deforestation.
Asked about the spread of uncontrolled fires, Bolsonaro brushed off criticism, saying it was the time of the year of the "queimada" or burn, when farmers use fire to clear land.
"I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame. But it is the season of the queimada," he told reporters.
Space agency INPE, however, said the large number of wildfires could not be attributed to the dry season or natural phenomena alone.
"There is nothing abnormal about the climate this year or the rainfall in the Amazon region, which is just a little below average," said INPE researcher Alberto Setzer.
People frequently blame the dry season for the wildfires in the Amazon, but that is not quite accurate, he said.
"The dry season creates the favorable conditions for the use and spread of fire, but starting a fire is the work of humans, either deliberately or by accident," Setzer said.
Bolsonaro recently fired the director of INPE after he criticized agency statistics showing an increase in deforestation in Brazil, saying they were inaccurate.
"I am waiting for the next set of numbers, that will not be made up numbers. If they are alarming, I will take notice of them in front of you," he told reporters.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
