New Brazilian president threatens survival of the Amazon

Elected on a wave of far-right rhetoric, the new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, wants to withdraw from the Paris Climate agreement, like the United States. He has said publicly that he believes that the UN, amongst others, are set on alienating the Amazonian basin from Brazil and setting up an independent state.

Bolsonaro plans to capitalise upon the natural resources that the Amazonian rainforest offers to drive economic prosperity for the country, and says that minority indigenous people will have to move aside in the interests of the majority. Logging companies, and other organisations eager to flout the environmental protections afforded by current legislation, are queuing up to profit from the new regime, spelling disaster for one of the world's most important remaining natural ecosystems.

Read an article published in The Guardian that summarises Bolonaro's election campaign promises here, and an article published by National Geographic that discusses the risk to the Amazonian environment and local indigenous people here.