At the U.N., Jair Bolsonaro Presents a Surreal Defense of His Amazon Policies

"By tradition, the Brazilian President is the first leader to speak at the General Debate at the United Nations General Assembly, and on Tuesday morning it was the turn of Jair Bolsonaro, the outlandish, far-right, populist leader, who came to power last January. In what was just his second major address on the world stage—he appeared at Davos three weeks after his inauguration—Bolsonaro gave a predictably defiant defense of his country’s policies regarding the environment, especially the Amazon rain forest, sixty per cent of which lies within Brazil’s borders. For non-Brazilians, hearing Bolsonaro speak on the topic must have been a surreal experience (similar, perhaps, to hearing Donald Trump, yesterday in New York, tout himself as a champion of religious freedom). This summer, the Amazon’s forests went up in flames. But, on Tuesday, Bolsonaro asserted that the forests were “practically untouched,” and blamed a “lying and sensationalist media” for propagating fake news about their destruction. He also decried the notion that the Amazon is “a heritage of humankind.”"

article by JON LEE ANDERSON