Brasilia | Brazil has rejected an offer from the G7 countries, to aid the Amazon forest fires by providing the country with $22 million.
An official snubbed the offer advised the European Union to rather “reforest”.
“We appreciate [the offer], but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni, the chief of staff to President Jair Bolsonaro, told the G1 news website.
At the G7 summit, leaders of all the member countries pledged a summation of $22 millions for Brazil to douse the Amazon forest fires, which seem to be ravaging the lush green.
They pledged after an insisting French President Emmanuel Macron, who had put the fires high on his agenda.
Commenting on the G7 offer of aid, Mr Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, told the Globo news website: “Thanks, but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe.
“Macron cannot even avoid a predictable fire in a church that is part of the world’s heritage, and he wants to give us lessons for our country?” Mr Lorenzoni added, in a reference to the fire that hit Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in April.
He also said Brazil could teach “any nation” how to protect native forests.
Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles had earlier told reporters they had welcomed the G7 funding to fight the fires that have swept across 950,000 hectares (2.3 million acres) and prompted the deployment of the army.
But after a meeting between Bolsonaro and his ministers, the Brazilian government changed course.
“Brazil is a democratic, free nation that never had colonialist and imperialist practices, as perhaps is the objective of the Frenchman Macron,” Lorenzoni said.
Although about 60 percent of the Amazon is in Brazil, the vast forest also spreads over parts of eight other countries or territories, including the French overseas territory of Guiana on the continent’s northeast coast.
About 80,000 fires in the “World’s lung” have been detected so far, highest in recent years.
While fires are common during the dry season, they have gone up about 80% more this year.
On Friday, facing mounting pressure from abroad, President Bolsonaro authorised the military to help tackle the blazes.
Brazil says 44,000 soldiers have been deployed to combat the fires and environmental crimes in the Amazon, and military operations are under way in seven states as the result of requests for assistance from local governments.
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