Brazil Vice-President and 6 Ministers Will View Amazon with 10 Countries’ Top Diplomats

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The federal government announced on Thursday, October 29th, that it will take diplomatic representatives from ten countries to the Amazon region next week to argue “that the Brazilian Amazon is still preserved“. The delegation will be headed by Vice-President and President of the Legal Amazon Council, Hamilton Mourão.

President Jair Bolsonaro is not expected to join the official trip, which includes events in the cities of Manaus, São Gabriel da Cachoeira and Maturacá, all in Amazonas. The group should leave Brasília next Wednesday morning, November 4th, and return two days later, on Friday 6th.

According to the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, the delegation will include the heads of the diplomatic missions of:

• South Africa
• Germany
• Canada
• Colombia
• Spain
• France
• Peru
• Portugal
• United Kingdom
• Sweden

In addition to the countries’ delegations, the diplomatic heads of the European Union and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, which is headquartered in Brasília, are expected to join the trip.

The Brazilian executive will be represented by Minister of Agriculture Tereza Cristina, Minister of Environment Ricardo Salles, Minister of Foreign Relations Ernesto Araújo, Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello, Minister of Institutional Security Augusto Heleno and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant Brigadier Raul Botelho, in addition to Mourão.

The trip was organized after eight European countries sent a letter to Mourão, stating that the high rate of deforestation could hinder the import of Brazilian products.

In the document released in September, the countries said they were committed to eliminating deforestation from agricultural product chains sold to Europe. In reaction, Mourão said he intended to invite the ambassadors to visit the biome.

“The issue is proportion. If we can see that this [deforestation] is concentrated in a specific area, that it doesn’t correspond to the mass of the Amazon biome, we are emphasizing a recurring rhetoric by the vice-president. That there is indeed a civilization clash in a certain area,” said Ambassador Juliano Féres Nascimento, head of the Vice-Presidency’s diplomatic advisory.

The Norwegian Ambassador has also been invited, but will not be able to join. Germany and Norway are the largest donors to the Amazon Fund, which finances environmental initiatives in the region – and has not signed contracts to encourage new projects since 2018.

When he received the letter, Mourão considered that the document “did not bear an aggressive tone” and reiterated the content of other demonstrations received by the government, criticized because of President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policy.

According to Mourão, the “focal point” of the letter was a commercial issue involving food production chains. The discussion occurs in a context of trade barriers, in which Brazil must engage in diplomatic and environmental negotiations.

“It is part of European countries’ trade strategy to address this supply chain issue, which is a barrier. There are tariff and non-tariff barriers, so we must negotiate, not only for trade, but for diplomacy, as well as for the environment,” said the vice-president in September.

Itinerary

According to Mourão’s diplomatic advisor, the plan is for the plane to depart from Brasília towards Serra do Cachimbo, located on the border between the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. From there, the aircraft should lower its altitude and follow the BR-163 highway, along the stretch that runs from the border between the two states to the city of Santarém (PA).

Nascimento says that, along this stretch, it will be possible to fly over recently deforested areas, which face frequent fires and areas that show the “scars” of fire. Then the delegation will be introduced to the part of the Amazon that is preserved, said the advisor.

In Manaus, the itinerary includes activities in military organizations and in the Federal Police investigation laboratory.

In Iranduba, the group should visit a colonization project of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA). The delegation should also visit the site where the waters of the Negro and Solimões rivers meet to form the Amazon River.

In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, the ambassadors should be taken to the Indigenous Health Support House, of the Ministry of Health’s Special Indigenous Health Secretariat, in addition to visiting military organizations.

Source: G1