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When Adécio Piran enters the editorial office of his newspaper "Folha do Progresso", two policemen follow him. They also do not give up when he goes to lunch or goes shopping. "I'm afraid they'll do something to me," says the 56-year-old journalist.
His fear is well-founded: he has received several death threats in recent weeks; Above all, he was abused by WhatsApp and Facebook. Among the cattle farmers and lumbermen of his hometown Novo Progresso in the south of the Brazilian Amazon state Pará he is considered an enemy and traitor.
"They want to silence me with an ad boycott," he says. That would be a big blow to the little newspaper that comes online every two weeks and depends on advertisements.
But Piran has just done his job: On August 5, he had written in his newspaper that dozens of ranchers in the region planned for August 10, a "Day of Fire": They wanted to set at the same time huge areas of previously deforested jungle on fire. Piran: "They had agreed to the action in a WhatsApp group."
Fernando Bizerra Jr / EPA-EFE / REX
Brand in the Amazon
An informer put the news to the journalist. "We have to show the President (Jair Bolsonaro, d.) That we want to work, and that's only possible when we cut down." We win and clear pasture with fire, "Piran quoted from the anonymous chat.
The revelation made headlines worldwide. It confirmed the worst fears of environmentalists, who have long denounced the far-right environmentalist Bolsonaro and his followers, and increased the pressure on the Brazilian government to finally do something about the destruction of the rainforest. "I suddenly became the focus of an international conflict," says Piran.
Bolsonaro promises to be lenient
The arsonists apparently built on the fact that they would remain unpunished: Bolsonaro had repeatedly made it clear that environmental offenses would no longer be punished and the state would exercise leniency in recovering once imposed penalties.
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Already in the election campaign Bolsonaro had criticized environmental penalties as "profiteering". And so, since taking office on 1 January 2019, the Ibama Environmental Agency has imposed one-third less fines than in the same period of the previous year - while the slash and burn exploded at the same time. "People here believe that the word of the President is law," says Piran.
And that's a problem, because the Amazon is the lungs of the earth. More than half of the world's tropical rainforest is located in the Amazon, and if the destruction continues, the forest in the Amazon will die - with catastrophic consequences for the rest of the world. Not even the entire Amazon has to be deforested, it's enough, one fifth disappears, so that the ecosystem collapses.
The forests, besides the oceans, are the most important protection mechanisms against the climate crisis. Without them, it will not be averted, because they save around 1.4 billion tons of CO² per year.
But despite news coverage by journalist Piran, on 10 August, the "Day of Fire", huge fires occurred in the region. This is confirmed by satellite images of the state space authority INPE, which monitors deforestation in the Amazon. The municipality of Novo Progresso recorded 124 fires on August 10, an increase of 300 percent over the previous day.
Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS
Fire and smoke in Porto Velho, Brazil, in August 2019
Most fires ravaged the Jamanxim State Forest, a 1.3 million-acre nature reserve established in 2006, which has been targeted by land speculators for years. Between the 9th and 11th of August, INPE recorded 136 fires there.
In the neighboring municipality of São Félix do Xingu, the number of fires even increased by 329 percent. In the Triunfo do Xingu nature reserve, about 3000 hectares of forest fell victim to the flames within a few days. The forest is "burned down to gain pasture land," confirmed Pará Governor Helder Barbalho.
With chainsaw and smartphone
The main weapon of the environmental gangster is - in addition to power saws and a can of gasoline - the smartphone: Although the reception in many Amazon communities is precarious, but Wi-Fi is available in almost every village. WhatsApp is the most important form of communication in the Amazon. In closed chat groups farmers and loggers deny the planned depletion.
In Novo Progresson, the police investigate a WhatsApp group called "Sertão", which includes around 70 ranchers, sawmill owners and business people. It is headed by businessman Ricardo de Nadai. He denies that he is responsible for the slash-and-burn.
According to the police, the threats against the journalist came from a WhatsApp group called "Direita Unida Renovada" ("United Renewed Rights"). The group is managed by a certain Donizete Severino Duarte.
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The ranchers of the region deny, however, that there was even a "day of fire". The reports are an invention of the owner of a "smear sheet that the city does not like and is against the government," said the chairman of the Farmers Association of Novo Progresso, Agamenon Meneses, the BBC.
A farmer's advocate went to Brazilian journalists to the claim that members of the National Parks Environmental Protection Agency ICMBio have set the fires - an outrageous thesis that has already proclaimed President Bolsonaro in a similar form. In cities like Novo Progresso, these conspiracy theories, which are mainly distributed via WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook, fall on fertile ground.
Fire clearings in the protected area of the indigenous people
In other regions of the Amazon, environmental criminals use WhatsApp to plan their actions. In the state of Rondônia farmers from the town of União Bandeirantes, a stronghold of Bolsonaro supporters, have agreed to illegal slash-and-burn in the indigenous protected area of the Karipuna via WhatsApp: After August 20, "everything burned", they would have audio message in one According to Laura Vicuña of the CIMI CIMI religious church in Porto Velho.
The Indigenous helpers did not have direct access to the WhatsApp group, according to CIMI employee Volmir Bavaresco. "An informer who is related to one of the ranchers has given us the information."
Ricardo Moraes / REUTERS
The CIMI and the Indians are the opponents of the Brandroder and also well-connected in the region. Like their enemies, they also keep in touch via WhatsApp. For fear of the environmental gangsters, however, most refrain from posing photos of themselves in the network.
But the causes of the problem are not just in the region. German consumers order beef and soybeans, for which the huge areas of the rainforest have to give way in Brazil.
Journalist Piran now wants to show himself less in public because of the threats against him. "I'll wait until the situation calms down," he says.
Hope that the authors of the attacks are found and convicted, he does not hate. "Our justice is slow and inefficient," he says. When three years ago strangers set fire to a car of the environmental authority Ibama in Novo Progresso, the police had also investigated, according to Piran: "But nobody has ever been charged."
This article is part of the project Global Society, for which our reporters report from four continents. The project is long-term and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
What is the project Global Society?
Under the title Global Society, reporters from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe will be reporting on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development. The reportages, analyzes, photo galleries, videos and podcasts appear in the Politics Department of SPIEGEL. The project is long-term and will be supported over three years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
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SPIEGEL ONLINE has already implemented two projects in recent years with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: The "Expedition The Day After tomorrow" on Global Sustainability Goals and the journalistic refugee project "The New Arrivals" Several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and escape have emerged.
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