• SOS Amazonas: What's behind the fires that could alter the world's climate

The Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro suspended this Friday all operations to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon and the fires in the Pantanal. The decision, which is unprecedented, was announced in a statement by the environment ministry, which attributes it to a budget blockade ordered by the economy ministry.

"As a result of the financial blockade executed by the Federal Budget Secretariat today (...) all operations to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon will be interrupted from zero hours on Monday, August 31 , as well like all firefighting operations in the Pantanal and other regions of the country ", reads the official note.

According to the Ministry of the Environment, the blockade, of about 60 million reais (9.3 million euros) "was decided by the Secretary of Government and the Civil House of the Presidency of the Republic", so in certain so the president is blamed directly. At the moment, Bolsonaro did not comment on the matter.

The decision can have a devastating effect, because it involves removing thousands of workers who fight against environmental crimes from the territory. The two main organs of the ministry will be affected above all: the Brazilian Institute of the Environment (Ibama), which coordinates the prosecutors who act as an environmental police, and the Chico Mendes Institute of Biodiversity (ICM-Bio), which oversees for the protection of natural parks.

Regarding the Pantanal fires , 1,346 brigade members, 86 vans, ten trucks and four Ibama helicopters will be demobilized, as well as 459 brigade members and ten Air Tractor aircraft from ICM-Bio. In the Amazon, 77 prosecutors, 48 ​​vehicles and four helicopters from Ibama and 324 prosecutors from ICM-Bio will stop prosecuting illegal deforestation.

The Pantanal, located on the border with Bolivia and Paraguay, is the largest wetland in South America and one of the regions with the greatest biodiversity on the continent. In recent weeks, fires have devastated 10 percent of its territory, between 1.4 and 1.7 million hectares, according to official data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Brazil.

The satellites of this state agency also verified a critical situation in the Amazon in recent weeks. Between August 1 and 26, 24,633 sources of fires were detected . Most of these fires are set, and occur now, in the dry season, to destroy the vegetation destroyed in the previous months and give way to pasture for livestock or crops.

This same week, the Brazilian vice president, General Antônio Hamilton Mourão, downplayed the fires, saying that taking into account the enormous extent of the Amazon, they are like "a needle in a haystack." In addition, he assured that there is a "biased treatment" of the data to present Brazil "as a villain in the environmental issue."

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