G7 offers emergency aid to fight Amazon forest fires
Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy nations have offered $20 million of emergency aid to help battle wildfires.
Despite record wildfires in the Amazon and President Jair Bolsonaro previously saying his government lacked the money to fight the blazes, it was not clear if Brazil would accept the G7 offer amid growing international concern.
Personal relations between French President Emmanuel Macron and Bolsonaro, already strained by the crisis in the Amazon, deteriorated even further after Brazil's leader mocked Macron's wife on Facebook.
Facing increased isolation abroad for his stance on the unfolding environmental crisis, Bolsonaro also found himself under mounting pressure at home, with a poll on Monday showing that his government's approval rating sank to 29.4% in August.
"We will straightaway offer Amazonian countries that signal to us their needs, financial support," Macron said in the wealthy resort of Biarritz on France's Atlantic coast.
Many of the fires sweeping through the Amazon are thought to have been started deliberately in Brazil, with environmentalists blaming speculators who burn vegetation to clear it in hopes of selling the land to farmers and ranchers.
Global anger and concern has been steadily rising as the blazes have raged because of the rainforest's importance to the environment. The Amazon is often described as "the lungs of the world" due to its vast ability to absorb carbon dioxide.
Within minutes of the G7 move, however, Bolsonaro said Brazil was being treated like "a colony or no man's land," and denounced the creation of an international alliance to save the Amazon as an attack on his nation's sovereignty.
However, Brazil's Environment Minister Ricardo Salles struck a different note, calling the aid "welcome."
Later on Monday, presidential spokesman said Bolsonaro might visit the Amazon region later this week, to check on the efforts to combat the fires.
Calling the Amazon fires a global emergency, Macron pushed the disaster to the top of the G7 agenda and said the member states were ready to provide concrete help.
"France will do so with military support in the coming hours," he said, without giving further details.
Canada said it would send water bombers to Brazil to help contain the blaze and was also contributing C$15 million ($11.30 million) in aid.
"One of the things we have seen over the past years as Canada has faced increasingly extreme wildfire events is there is a global network of support and friends that lean on each other," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the end of the summit.
More international celebrities voiced their concern over the fires on Monday, with actor Leonardo DiCaprio telling Reuters that the crisis is "incredibly tragic" and that governments must do more to fight climate change. DiCaprio also pledged $5 million for the rainforest.
Published: by Radio NewsHub