Unfortunately the bad news continues: due to the determined attack on indigenous reserves within the Brazilian Rainforest, and the continual push by Poachers and others into these reserves, now condoned by Bolsonaro the Brazilian president, the fires are burning and doing particularly significant damage within in indigenous reserves.
This is not really a surprise as in order for loggers to turn land into crops they need to deforest it and the most efficient way of starting this process is by burning it, after removing the most valuable wood available. I think the problem with this news is that whether intentionally or not what is land grab behaviour has disappeared under the uproar about the fires in the Amazon, the fact that there are similar number of fires in the Congo Basin point to this being an issue that doesn’t only occur in the Amazon and that is at least partly due to the fact that there is a warming climate which is drying out the rainforests.
Unfortunately more recent press has shown that much of the deforestation going on in the rainforest of the Amazon are funded by a senior donor of Trump’s and McConnells. It is also no run largely by a company called Blackstone based entirely in the USA. This company is lead by Steven Schwarzman. Blackstone has argued that they are not destroying the rainforest, but that by building highways and all the infrastructure they allow the goods to leave the Amazon faster and thereby do less damage. This has been shown by research on deforestation to be patently absurd. Roads through the rainforest are always a catalyst for much faster deforestation as it allows greater and easier access to remote parts of the rainforest. This is the problem with Trump it does not only impact American government spending but it also creates an environment where this sort of behaviour is considered acceptable.
Also so much of the deforestation is to grow crops of soybeans and similar, but previous rainforest land is not suitable for crop growing and after 10 to 15 years this land tends to turn into equatorial desert.
It seems that unfortunately not only does Trump’s climate change denial impact America’s position but also no the investments they make and the rest of the world, allowing their counter scientific views to have a greater impact. Trump’s impact on the world through his climate change denial is is sending out fingers into many countries beyond the USA’s borders.
