Military sent in to protect Amazon rainforest

[flash13]

Military sent in to protect Amazon rainforest

Source

 

Destruction of the Amazon has provoked international outcry that not enough is being done to protect the world's largest rainforest

 

Brazil has launched a military deployment to protect the Amazon rainforest, Vice President Hamilton Mourao says, in response to surging deforestation this year with the high season for forest fires still approaching.

 

 

The military - along with environmental authorities, police and other government agencies - began on Monday with an operation to stop illegal environmental destruction in a national forest in the

 

state of Rondonia near the Bolivian border, Mourao said at a press conference alongside other government ministers.

 

Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva said authorities are establishing bases of operation in three Amazon cities, with 3800 troops mobilised to begin raids against illegal logging and other

 

crimes, with initial operational costs of $US10.3 million ($NZ16.9 million).

 

Government data released on Friday showed that deforestation rose 55% in the first four months of the year, compared to the same period a year ago, to 1202 square kilometres.

 

That comes on top of last year's destruction rising to an 11-year high, provoking international outcry that not enough was being done to protect the world's largest rainforest.

 

President Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree last week deploying the military to the region, repeating a move he made last year to send in the armed forces after forest fires and deforestation surged.

 

This year troops are being sent in three months earlier than in 2019.

[mp68terr]

Even if more than half of the Amazon rainforest is within Brazilian borders, are the other countries moving their army too to protect it?

[dantes1399]

Are there troubles in Amazon forests?