MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil gripped by “climate terrorism,” says Minister Silva

There are people acting deliberately to create chaos in Brazil, Silva stressed

South America's largest country is going through a wave of 21st Century “terrorism” which capitalizes on the high temperatures and low humidity to set large areas on fire damaging people's health, biodiversity and destroying forests, Climate Change Minister Marina Silva sqaid Sunday, Agencia Brasil reported. The official referred to this phenomenon as “climate terrorism.”

 “There is a nationwide ban on the use of fire, but there are those who are carrying out real climate terrorism,” said Silva. She added that there was an intention behind these actions, as severe droughts hit every State in the country but two. Silva also advocated stricter penalties for those who commit this type of crime, currently ranging between one and four years in prison.

“It is not possible that in the face of one of the greatest droughts in the entire history of our continent and country, and with the existing ban, that people continue to set fires. This causes great harm to public health, the environment, our production systems and only exacerbates the problem of climate change. When you have a situation in which you know that setting fires is as if you were setting off a barrel or a powder magazine, that is a criminal intention,” Silva underlined while recalling that 17 people have so far been arrested as over 50 inquiries remain open.

Silva also hinted she believed there were people offstage encouraging these crimes, which elicits a investigations and intelligence work by the Federal Police (PF). She also likened these arson attacks to the Jan 8, 2023, attempted coup d'état. “That's why the work of the PF is so important. We need to continue investigating with combined intelligence work, because that's where we'll be able to find out where this motivation comes from. I'm practically comparing what's happening to January 8th. These are people acting deliberately to create chaos in Brazil, setting fire to forests and people's productive activities.”

Damage in the State of São Paulo alone are around R$ 2 billion (US$ 362.43 million) for farmers, especially sugar cane growers, Silva also pointed out after some 900,000 hectares of agricultural and livestock areas have already been burned, in addition to 1.4 million hectares of pastureland and 1 million hectares of forest areas.

“A humid forest doesn't catch fire, because the fire starts and the forest itself manages to put it out. As we are already experiencing the effects of climate change, the forest is probably losing moisture, as the scientists say, and around 32% of the fires are being set intentionally to degrade the forest itself,” Silva also underlined.

In this scenario, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was holding a key cabinet meeting Monday morning to discuss possible courses of action in the face of this calamity. Lula and First Lady Janja da Silva flew over the Brasília National Park Sunday, which has been hit by a major fire.

Federal Police is following a lead pointing to the possible fact that some of the forest fires may have occurred through coordinated actions, with simultaneous fires spreading. Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino also found the hypothesis plausible and ordered measures to tackle the fires in the Amazon and Pantanal, granting the federal government access to special funding for this task.

The large number of fires nationwide has also put pressure on the health system, particularly in cases of elderly people and children with respiratory problems amid cloud of smoke.