The Government of Brazil wants companies, investment funds and individuals, both Brazilian and from the rest of the planet, to contribute money to preserve the Amazon.
To that end, this Tuesday launched an initiative in search of sponsors for the 120 natural reserves created in recent decades, that is, 15% of the surface of the largest tropical forest in the world in Brazilian territory.
They are about 63 million hectares.
The
Adopt a park program
-
a
name that undervalues the exuberance, extension and ecological value of those territories that make up the territory of France - was presented by the president, Jair Bolsonaro, in Brasilia this Tuesday.
Environmentalists consider it a purely propaganda initiative.
Brazil is increasingly feeling political and commercial pressure due to its government's policy towards the Amazon, which the United States is now expected to join with Joe Biden.
The initiative is open to foreign sponsors despite the fact that, for Bolsonaro and a good part of Brazilians, foreign interest in the Amazonian territory hides threats to their sovereignty.
Of course, the price differs.
Locals can adopt an ecological reserve for 50 reais per hectare (8 euros, 9 dollars) and for foreigners it will cost 10 euros.
The first, and only, company that for the moment has agreed to participate is the French supermarket chain Carrefour.
French President Emmanuel Macron is precisely the president who has most harshly criticized the Bolsonaro government in these two years for its lack of interest in conserving the Amazon, the increase in deforestation to record levels and the increase in fires.
The ultra-rightist, who in the campaign criminalized NGOs and promised to prioritize the economic development of Amazonia over its preservation, referred to the coincidence: “To those who criticize us we can say: 'Look, we don't have economic conditions to serve these areas, help us.
And a French company was the first to appear ”.
Carrefour is in need of improving its reputation in Brazil after two of its white guards beat up a black customer at the doors of one of its supermarkets last November.
The multinational company plans, according to the newspaper
Estadão
, to formalize the adoption of the Lake Cuniã reserve, covering 75,000 hectares and located in the state of Rondonia, on the border with Bolivia.
This territory the size of Caracas has a legal status that allows controlled extraction of timber or subsistence agriculture.
Five other companies are negotiating sponsorships, according to the Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, the
Bloomberg
agency
.
The management of the reserves - called conservation units - will continue to be in the hands of governmental environmental organizations such as Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment) or the Chico Mendes Institute (ICMBio, focused on conserving biodiversity).
NGOs and environmental activists argue that it would be much more effective to stop systematically eroding the capacity of these institutions.
In a note, Greenpeace accused the Bolsonaro government of promoting "a new media action to clean up its image" while "continuing to destroy the instruments that protect conservation units, scrapping the ICMBio, militarizing its structures and imposing significant budget cuts."
To Carrefour and other companies that may be interested, the forest manager and activist Cristiane Mazzeti urged them in a tweet to stop using the environment to clean up their reputation and "hurry to fulfill their promises of zero deforestation."
The internal tensions in Bolsonaro's Cabinet were also exposed in the presentation of
Adopt a park
.
The main interlocutor of diplomats and investment funds concerned about the government's environmental policy has been the vice president, retired General Hamilton Mourão, since the 2019 fire crisis, who did not participate in the event, in which Minister Salles was.
The Minister of the Environment said openly in a Council of Ministers that he was going to take advantage of the fact that the pandemic attracts all the media attention to pass laws that weaken environmental control and facilitate agribusiness.
The Bolsonaro Cabinet verbalized for the first time the idea of seeking sponsors for the preservation of the Amazon in full public scuffle with the American actor Leonardo di Caprio in 2019, when fires devoured thousands of hectares in the Amazon.
To find out the most important news on Climate and Environment from EL PAÍS, sign up here for our
weekly
newsletter
.
Follow the Climate and Environment section on
and