Brazilian indigenous leader urges France’s Macron to stop deforestation

A Brazilian indigenous leader urged French President Emmanuel Macron to stop deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon.

In a letter to Macron on Saturday seen by The Associated Press, Ninawa urged Macron to call on the European Union to limit trade linked to deforestation. 

Ninawa, who goes by one name and leads the Huni Kui people, also called for Macron to pressure Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to halt logging and development projects the leader say are destroying the critical forest.

“The current (Brazilian) administration is working to authorize or amnesty the extraction and export of timber, as forest fires devastate flora and fauna, to create fields for monocultures of soybeans and for raising cattle,” reads the letter, according to AP.

Ninawa adds that the government works to legalize invading territories of the indigenous “considered as an obstacle to agribusiness and to what is wrongly called ‘development.’”

During a White House virtual summit in April, Brazil committed to ending illegal deforestation by 2030 and doubling funding for deforestation enforcement.

In an address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Bolsonaro touted indications of reduced Amazon deforestation, AP reported at the time.

But according to Imazon, which has been monitoring deforestation in the Amazon since 2008, 1,606 kilometers in the area were deforested in the Brazilian Amazon in August alone, the highest rate for the month in 10 years.

The deforested area in August was seven percent higher compared to August 2020.