SOS in the Amazon: skyrocketing deforestation
This summer an area of the Amazon region almost four times as large as in the previous years has been deforested, satellite images show. The rainforest produces a fifth of the planet's oxygen and is therefore considered the 'lungs of the world'. Sixty percent of the forest is in Brazil - where President Jair Bolsanaro is pushing deforestation. Europe's press issue urgent calls to action.
The rainforest is everybody's responsibility
Every single nation is responsible for protecting the 'lungs of the world', warns Cláudia Madeira of the Portuguese Greens in Jornal Económico:
“Sustainable development must protect biodiversity and human rights. This means a global response is needed to protect the Amazon. No state can shrug off the ecological and social responsibility to preserve this unique heritage which has an inestimable ecological value - not if they want to follow the principle of 'think global, act local' that is.”
The north must club together for the south
Threats won't deter Bolsanaro, the Süddeutsche Zeitung believes:
“What would help here is an investment programme that makes it attractive to stop burning down the forests. Existing projects like the so-called Amazon Fund, which is primarily financed by Norway and Germany to a lesser extent, are not sufficient. Instead all the major industrial nations must club together to impress Bolsanaro. Then the states in the northern hemisphere would be giving back some of their wealth to the south, whose exploitation forms the basis of our economic advantage. This time, however, it would be a mutually beneficial deal.”