Brazilian warplanes are dumping water on the burning forest in the Amazon state of Rondonia, responding to a global outcry over the destruction of the world's largest tropical rainforest, according to a government video.
The European Union Council president Donald Tusk said it was hard to imagine the bloc ratifying its trade pact with Mercosur as long as Brazil fails to curb the fires ravaging the Amazon rainforest. The EU stands by the EU-Mercosur agreement, Tusk told reporters at a G7 meeting in Biarritz in southern France.
Pope Francis on Sunday called for a global commitment to put out the fires in the Amazon, saying the area was essential for the health of the planet. “We are all worried about the vast fires that have developed in the Amazon. Let us pray so that, with the commitment of all, they can be put out soon.”
Wildfires in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil have ignited a firestorm on social media, with President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday suggesting green groups started the blazes. Images of fires purportedly devouring sections of the world's largest rainforest have gone viral on Twitter.
Tens of thousands of women took to the streets of Brazil's capital on Wednesday to denounce President Jair Bolsonaro, in the third anti-government protest in the city in two days.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro dismissed the importance of Germany's funding of sustainability projects in the country's forests, as the European nation weighed withdrawing from the region.
Germany will partially suspend funds sent to Brazil to finance projects aimed at preserving the Amazon forest due to increasing deforestation, Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro suggested on Friday that people poop every other day as a way to save the environment after he came under fire for a surge in deforestation of the Amazon since he came to power.
The head of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research said on Friday he was going to be sacked following a row with President Jair Bolsonaro over deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has rebutted European criticism over his commitment to the environment, saying he'd flown over Europe twice and hadn't seen “even a square kilometre of forest.”