Reporters look at the world! Hello everyone, I am Cao Xuan, a correspondent of the General Station in Brazil!
Brazil's environment minister, Joaquin Wright, recently announced a tough move to environmental remediation: the fine for illegal deforestation has increased from the current 1 million reais (about 1.3 million yuan) to 50 million reais (about 65 million yuan); If the illegal logging site is in a national park, the fine will be doubled to 100 million reais, or about 130 million yuan.
Brazilian rainforest (Image from Visual China)
As we all know, the Amazon rainforest, known as the "lungs of the earth", accounts for half of the world's rainforest area and 20% of the forest area, of which 60% is in Brazil. The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is sparsely populated, difficult to supervise, and deforestation and deforestation occur from time to time. Some media have calculated that if the Amazon rainforest is completely deforested, the oxygen that sustains human survival on the earth will be reduced by one-third.
Looking back at the history of Brazil, we find that when Portuguese navigators discovered the New World in the 16th century, there was a country that grew brazil wood in large quantities, which was mined and shipped back to Europe for the manufacture of red dyes. Over time, people referred to this country with a lot of brazil wood as Brazil, which is Brazil.
Destruction of Brazilian rainforest (Image: Visual China)
In the past 500 years, the Amazon rainforest on the Atlantic coast has been continuously cut down and destroyed, and the lung lobes of the "lungs of the earth" have been continuously missing and disappearing.
After entering the 21st century, after efforts, the phenomenon of deforestation in Brazil was once curbed. Between 2004 and 2012, The rate of deforestation in Brazil fell by 80 percent.
However, since 2012, Brazil has stepped up the development of amazon rainforests, leading to a rebound in deforestation rates. During the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have pointed out that lumberjacks and miners are at increased risk of bringing the virus to remote areas, putting the health of indigenous peoples at serious risk.
Brazilian redwoods planted in Ibira buera Park, São Paulo, Brazil (Photo by Cao Xuan)
Real-time monitoring data on deforestation released by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research shows that from January to June this year alone, 3,988 square kilometers of forest were deforested in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, equivalent to the size of three New York Cities, an increase of 10.6% over the same period last year, the highest level since the agency began compiling the data in mid-2015.
In early June, a British journalist and an indigenous Brazilian expert were shot and killed while conducting fieldwork in Brazil's Amazon region. Some Brazilian lawmakers said the killings were related to the chaos of governance in the Amazon region. Due to the close links between illegal logging and criminal gangs, the number of law enforcement officers in the area is seriously under-represented, funding is difficult to guarantee, and indigenous people and environmental defenders face the threat of death.
Century-old trees everywhere (Photo by Cao Xuan)
It seems that to save and protect the "lungs of the earth", it is not enough to rely on cruel moves.
Brazilian Environment Minister Wright said he intends to add 739 staff to two important conservation agencies——— the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, and to purchase trucks, tractors and other equipment to improve their law enforcement capabilities.
A Brazilian tennis player planted the Pau-Brasil tree in a park in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1990 as a contribution to environmental protection in the sports world (Photo by Cao Xuan)
In fact, Brazil's strong awareness of environmental protection has always been there.
In the D'Ordoro Olympic Park in western Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, there is a place called "Athletes' Forest". During the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, each participating team planted a tree here, a total of 207 trees, symbolizing the concept of Brazil's Green Olympics.
It takes only a few days to cut down a forest, but it takes decades to plant a forest. Removing a lung lobe of the earth is simple, to grow a lung again, but it is more difficult, I hope that Brazil can embark on the virtuous cycle of forest protection, for the "lungs of the earth" Amazon rainforest to bring vitality.
The above is the observation of Cao Xuan, a reporter of the General Taiwan Station in Brazil, in the local area.
The author of this issue of "Reporters from the General Station Looks at the World" is Cao Xuan, a reporter of the General Station in Brazil
(From the Voice of China column "Reporters From the General Station Look at the World")
Producer 丨 Zhao Jiuxiao
Reporter 丨 Cao Xuan
Editor 丨 Yang Boyu