#FakeNews and #AmazonFires: how Brazil’s war on its own environmental defenders risks destabilizing a continent.
A thread.
A thread.
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot As someone who has been working in Amazonian conservation for 16 years, the events of the last three have come as an unexpected shock, culminating in all-out war on the environment over the summer 2/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot This rush to dismantle all the environmental and social progress of the last two decades leaves all of Amazonian researchers nauseous and we have tried to put the record straight at every turn theconversation.com/amazon-fires-e… 3/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot The latest insult has been the imprisonment of volunteer Amazonian firefighters bbc.co.uk/news/world-lat…, accused, without proof, of starting fires at the behest of an environmental charity 4/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot This was clearly a political move to give credence to the President’s falsehoods theguardian.com/world/2019/aug… about NGOs starting fires at the height of the #AmazonFires crisis 5/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot The rapid mobilization of people who care about truth and justice saw them released after two days with widespread external media coverage 6/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Even after they were freed, Bolsonaro continued to pin the blame on anyone other than the actual perpetrators - ruralistas — elite land owners and speculators, calling out Leonardo DiCaprio and doubling-down on the lies bbc.co.uk/news/world-lat… 7/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot His environmental minister Ricardo Salles and numerous other members of his government have pushed this fake narrative hard 8/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot With help from a bot army they have labelled environmental defenders as terrorists – although the voice of reason can still be heard – the reply here reminds readers that those responsible for the ‘Day of Fire’ remain unpunished 9/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot These same tactics were employed with the ridiculous attempts to tar Greenpeace with an oil spill off the Brazilian coast sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/m… 10/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot The news stories sound like something straight out of Breitbart, which coincidentally is running the story with numerous falsehoods breitbart.com/entertainment/… to cement a #fakenews environmental narrative 11/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot The resemblance in tactics to Bannon propaganda is not a coincidence here is Jair Bolsonaro’s son gleefully flagging it 12/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot These political machinations seem to be aimed at a long-term goal of creating space for an expansion of mining, logging and agribusiness and seek to disenfranchise indigenous populations independent.co.uk/environment/on… 13/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Brazil has been a leader in murdering environmental activists huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/report-e… these horrendous stories come so thick and fast it is hard to keep up bbc.co.uk/news/world-lat… 14/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot A long history of repression that impedes environmental and social justice theintercept.com/2019/11/25/ama… I’d recommend @GeorgeMonbiot's ‘Amazon Watershed’ to see its origins 15/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot The difference in the arrest of Alter do Chao’s volunteer environmental defenders is the use of the apparatus of the state to go after them and tar as many people as possible with false accusations 16/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Divide and conquer racism is a key tool in the current administration attempts to undermine the power of indigenous peoples nexusmedianews.com/how-tropical-t… 17/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Bolsonaro recently inaugurated the Belo Monte megadam, the continued proliferation of these structures washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?… is a grave threat to Amazonian biodiversity 18/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Meanwhile, it is not only Peru that is seeking to create the preconditions for Amazonian collapse, neighboring countries like Peru independent.co.uk/environment/pe… are also facilitating this march towards 'progress'/chaos 19/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot This loss of tropical forests in South America not only brings a wave of faunal/floral extinctions theconversation.com/will-we-soon-s… but will eventually precipitate a collapse in vital ecosystem services which underpin the economy 20/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot It has been claimed, that Brazilian agribusiness saw them through the recession, although this neglects the importance of smallholders in actually feeding the country news.mongabay.com/2019/01/as-bra… 21/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Either way, the loss of Amazonian monsoon rains to South America’s breadbasket will be fatal for South American agriculture e360.yale.edu/features/how-d… 22/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot Collapse of precipitation patterns will also turn the lights out - Hydroelectric power plants produce almost 80% of the electrical energy consumed there eia.gov/todayinenergy/… 23/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot When I was still living in Brazil in 2015 theguardian.com/world/2015/jan… the megacity of São Paulo came close to running out of water 24/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot The loss of ecosystem services following Amazon dieback pnas.org/content/106/49… represents a clear and present danger to the integrity of the water-energy-food nexus across the “Southern Cone” of South America and hence civilization as we know it 25/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot We do however understand the nature of the crisis onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11… and have roadmaps to fix the problem pnas.org/content/115/46… 26/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot But the Government is not only undermining NGOs and activists, it is cutting funding to its own Amazonian research institutions – like the @museugoeldi diarioonline.com.br/noticias/para/… where I worked for five years, a move that will only hasten disaster 27/28
@domphillips @SamCowie84 @tomphillipsin @natalieben @GeorgeMonbiot We just need the Brazilian government to recognize the danger it is putting the whole continent, nay the whole planet in. The stakes could not be higher 28/28
*not only Brazil*
