Brazil Risks Losing Control of the Amazon to Organized Crime, Judge Warns

A Supreme Court judge in Brazil warned that the country runs the risk of losing control over its vast Amazon rainforest region to organized crime and traffickers who use the lawless region to smuggle drugs.

Justice Luis Roberto Barroso proposed that environmental experts, investors and local authorities come together to brainstorm on how to foster sustainable development that would preserve the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, and support the livelihoods of the 25 million people who live in the region.

The Amazon absorbs a large share of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, and its preservation is vital to the fight against the climate crisis.

"There is a real risk of (Brazil) losing the sovereignty of the Amazon not to any other country, but to organized crime," Justice Barroso said in an interview.

Under Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, illegal activities surged in the Amazon, encouraged by the easing of environmental protections and reduced funding for enforcement agencies.

"Brazilian authorities will have to be very committed to confronting environmental crimes such as illegal logging and mining, deforestation, land grabs and the murder of defenders of the forest," Barroso said.

Barroso, who attended the COP27 United Nations climate summit in Egypt last November, proposed that Brazil gather "the best minds in the world" to discuss how to develop a "bioeconomy" in the region to stop the degradation of the Amazon.

"We obviously want the world's ideas, but without giving up one millimeter of our sovereignty," the judge said.

Brazil's former President Bolsonaro had accused foreign environmentalists and non-governmental organizations of undermining Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.

The far-right president had appointed climate skeptics as ministers and stood by as deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest rose to a 15-year high.

Bolsonaro had paralyzed the Amazon Fund, to which Norway and Germany contributed more than $1 billion to support sustainable projects in the region.

The fund is expected to restart when Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in last October's elections to become President, takes office in January. Lula has pledged to end criminal impunity in the Amazon and crack down on environmental crimes.

"The preservation of the Amazon is essential for the world. I defend that the world should contribute to the preservation of the Amazon," Barroso said.

Source:REUTERS

This news article was translated into Turkish by Irmak Gül.