Country Comments

Brazil is a huge geographical land mass larger than the entire continent of Australia. Located in the equatorial region of South America, it has more animal and plant species than any other country in the world. Because of its massive amount of renewable resources, even with a large and growing population, at current consumption levels the country is sustainable.

However its leadership is accelerating exploitation of its valuable resources, much of it located in the “Lungs of the World” the Amazonian rain forest, which will not only have negative consequences to the country’s sustainability but that of the world.

Deforestation in the Amazon has accelerated. Brazilian leader Bolsonaro has called for economic development in the jungle which has emboldened land grabbers, illegal ranchers and wildcat miners. Official data released in late 2020 showed deforestation at a 12-year high. About 4,300 square miles of forest were lost in the 12 months to July 2020—up 9.5% from the same period a year earlier, according to satellite data from Brazil’s space agency, Inpe. (1) Funding for projects to protect women has dried up since January 2019. The Administration has launched policies that undermine IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, and ICMBio (The Chico Mendes Institute) which protects the nation’s federal conservation units, by effectively dismantling environmental law enforcement and allowing deforestation to proceed unchecked.

According to the International Women’s Health Coalition, Bolsonaro’s opposition to gender equality and his disparaging treatment of women threaten hard-earned sexual and reproductive health and rights in the country.

(1) Wall Street Journal, 2020