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What is Covid doing to the Amazon?

Is the pandemic amplifying the region's problems?

The coronavirus pandemic is having a growing impact on life in the Brazilian Amazon. Half a million indigenous people still live in often remote rainforest communities, yet many are still contracting Covid-19 and dying. The Munduruku people have already lost ten of their elders to the virus, a situation observers describe as akin to the destruction of a library or museum - so important are the ‘sábios’ - or sages - in passing on the community’s cultural heritage. The virus is also thought to have harmed anti-logging, anti-burning and anti-mining efforts around the rain-forest, with Brazil’s space agency identifying a large increase in the number of fires burning during the month of July compared to last year. This year the government has authorised the deployment of the military to combat deforestation and forest fires and also banned the setting of fires in the region for 120 days. But President Bolsonaro’s critics accuse him of underplaying the impact of coronavirus on the Amazon region and even exploiting the crisis for political gain. So is enough being done to support the country’s indigenous peoples? Will the Covid-19 speed up the clearing of the rainforest? And how is the crisis adding to the already volatile and polarised Brazilian political landscape? Ritula Shah and a panel of expert guests discuss what the virus is doing to Brazil's Amazon region.

Available now

53 minutes

Last on

Sat 8 Aug 2020 03:06GMT

Contributors

Adriana Ramos - Legal and policy adviser to the ISA, a Brazilian NGO

Thiago de Aragao - Senior Associate in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Director of Strategy at the consultancy Arko Advice

Chris Feliciano Arnold – Brazilian-born journalist and author of: 'The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First-Century Amazon'

José Augusto Pádua - Professor of Brazilian Environmental History at the Institute of History, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Also featuring ...

Sonia Guajajara - The Association of Brazil's Indigenous People

Photo

Children of the Yanomami attend a health brigade by the Brazilian Army in Alto Alegre municipality, Roraima state, Brazil by EPA/Joedson Alves

Broadcasts

  • Fri 7 Aug 2020 09:06GMT
  • Fri 7 Aug 2020 23:06GMT
  • Sat 8 Aug 2020 03:06GMT

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