Brazil’s president must be condemned, but economic pressure is much more important

Editorial: The country’s farmers know that, if they want to sell their products to the rest of the world, they cannot afford to be seen as the destroyers of the rainforest

Jair Bolsonaro has suggested he could pull the South American nation out of the Paris Agreement (Reuters)

Jair Bolsonaro deserves all the condemnation heaped upon him, by his own people and by other citizens of the world. He is not merely an authoritarian, but a possible dictator in the making. And his comments on the fires raging in the Amazon forest are contemptible.

At first, he suggested that foreign green activists were encouraging wildfires in order to put the blame on him. Then he responded to Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who put the fires on the agenda of the G7 summit this weekend, by accusing him of interfering in Brazil’s affairs with “a misplaced colonialist mindset”.

This is rich, coming from the leader of a country that exists as a result of colonialism, and which continues to exploit native Amazonian peoples. However, condemnation of Mr Bolsonaro is not enough. To an extent it simply plays into his hands, reinforcing his transparent nationalist tactic of claiming that foreigners are conspiring against him.

And indeed Brazilian governments, even those of a more enlightened complexion than Mr Bolsonaro’s, have always resented being lectured by outsiders on their duty to humankind to care for the vast ecological asset that is the Amazon basin.

Preserving the rainforest is vitally important in the attempt to limit global warming, as it takes a vast amount of carbon out of the world’s atmosphere. But in last year’s presidential election, Mr Bolsonaro suggested he could follow Donald Trump and pull Brazil out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, saying it compromised the country’s sovereignty.

The question facing world leaders at Biarritz this weekend, therefore, is how best to change the incentives acting on the Brazilian government. One of the more promising options may be to influence the country’s farmers. Not all leaders of agricultural interests in Brazil are in favour of forest clearance to expand the area under cultivation. Some farmers’ leaders have expressed fears that Mr Bolsonaro’s aggressive image abroad is damaging Brazil’s reputation and could hit exports of soybeans and beef.

As so often in matters of international diplomacy, there is a difficult balance to be struck. Any suggestion of punitive measures or economic sanctions may allow Mr Bolsonaro to rally his supporters and make him more inclined to weaken protections for the rainforest.

The pressure on Mr Bolsonaro may be more effective if it comes from conservative voices from inside his country. Brazil’s farmers know that, if they want to sell their products to the rest of the world, they cannot afford to be seen as the destroyers of the rainforest. Let that message go out from our world leaders this weekend.