Environment

• Saturday, August 31st 2019 - 09:55 UTC

  Brazil thanks Trump for being “on the same page” in the Amazon controversy: no foreign interference

  

  Brazil and the United States believe the international community should have no say in confronting fires raging in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo said on Friday after meeting President Donald Trump.

• Saturday, August 31st 2019 - 09:26 UTC

  Thousands of new fires ignited in the Amazon; Bolsonaro says Europe has nothing to teach Brazil on environment

  

  President Jair Bolsonaro said on Friday that Europe has “nothing to teach” Brazil about preserving the environment, as data showed thousands of new fires were ignited on the first day of a ban on burning.

• Friday, August 30th 2019 - 09:29 UTC

  Johnson at G7 summit led the way in ocean protection; Ascension island declares 100% of its waters an MPA

  

  During remarks at the close of the recent G7 summit in Biarritz, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the Aichi targets—goals set nearly a decade ago as part of the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity—must be “replaced with new, more ambitious targets to help us get back the biodiversity that this planet is losing, and has lost.”

• Friday, August 30th 2019 - 09:02 UTC

  Bolsonaro bans burning forests for 60 days, and insists Macron must apologize for calling him a liar

  

  Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree to ban burning throughout the country for two months, government sources said, as the authorities scramble to defuse the Amazon fires which have triggered a global outcry.

• Thursday, August 29th 2019 - 09:45 UTC

  Bolsonaro will join with other Amazon countries to set a common policy to protect the rainforest

  

  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday he would meet with other South American countries to set common policy for defending the Amazon rain forest, while his foreign minister said Brazil should be seen as an environmental hero.

• Thursday, August 29th 2019 - 09:42 UTC

  Bolivia admits fires have destroyed 1.2m hectares of forest; ecologists demand an end to bill promoting pastures

  

  Fires have destroyed 1.2 million hectares of forest and grasslands in Bolivia this year, the government said on Wednesday, though environmentalists claim the true figure is much greater.

• Thursday, August 29th 2019 - 08:10 UTC

  French mayors propose pesticide-free buffer zones around residential areas

  

  France is looking at introducing pesticide-free buffer zones around housing areas after several local mayors defied the government by banning weed killers such as glyphosate in their towns.

• Wednesday, August 28th 2019 - 10:04 UTC

  Norwegian investment funds warn global agricultural companies linked to Amazon deforestation

  

  The two most sizeable investors in Norway have told global companies to make sure they are not contributing to environmental destruction in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil.

• Wednesday, August 28th 2019 - 09:58 UTC

  Canada will continue trade negotiations with Mercosur, despite the current Amazon policy of Brazil

  

  Canada will continue its trade negotiations with Mercosur, the South American trading bloc that includes Brazil, despite demands to call a halt to the talks until more action is taken to protect the Amazon rainforest.

• Wednesday, August 28th 2019 - 09:56 UTC

  Insufficient rainfall forecasted as Brazil's Amazon dry season end approaches

  

  Weak rainfall is unlikely to extinguish a record number of fires raging in Brazil's Amazon anytime soon, with pockets of precipitation through to Sept 10 expected to bring only isolated relief, according to weather data and two experts.