Bolsonaro has decided that it’s best to blame the NGOs and charities whose job it is to

protect these places from mass destruction for the fires. Speaking to a steel industry
congress in the capital Brasilia, he said: “On the question of burning in the Amazon,
which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money, what is
the intention? To bring problems to Brazil.” It’s worth stating that Bolsonaro has no
evidence to back up these claims; they’re baseless hypotheses. Instead, it seems more
likely that the fires were purposely lit by cattle farmers. The Institute of Environmental
Research in Amazonia’s (IERA) Scientific Director, Ane Alecar, has already told the non-
profit nature magazine Mongabay that “the fire that we’re seeing today is a fire that’s
directly related to deforestation.”

Unlike a natural disaster, the blame for the Amazon Rainforest fires are firmly rooted in
politics too. So when it comes to putting them out and repairing the damage done, where
do we start?

We can hold the establishment to account

Considering the fires are directly tied to the action’s of Brazil’s prime minister and his
allies (or lack thereof), it’s fair to say that our first port of call should be powerful
government bodies in our own countries who have the opportunity to help change things.
We need direct action: active boycotts and protests that put the message into the sights of
the power makers. You can sign this petition to demand that the EU and the United
Nations put sanctions in place to force Brazil’s government to address the problems
surrounding deforestation, or contact your local member of parliament and express your
concerns for the part that we play in it. A lawyer in Brazil has even started a petition to
force the government to investigate the fires properly, and it has garnered nearly 600,000
signatures already. Or if you want to take to the streets and protest in your own country,
Extinction Rebellion have organised a mass protest outside Brazilian Embassies around
the world at 11am on Friday.