Indigenous appeal to Macron over Amazon

A Brazilian Indigenous leader attempted to reach out to French President Emmanuel Macron in a campaign to fight against deforestation in the Amazon region.

Cacique Ninawa, a leader of the indigenous Huni Kui people and representative of the Alliance of Mother Nature's Guardians was on Saturday delivering a letter to the Elysee Palace in an attempt to get Macron to pressure Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to halt logging, farming and development projects.

Speaking to The Associated Press in Paris, Ninawa noted that Macron drew worldwide attention to fires that ravaged the Amazon in 2019.

Ninawa wants European decision-makers to stop facilitating exchange and trade of products directly linked to deforestation, such as soya, meat and wood. He is in France to attend a peace conference.

Decrying the "predation" of his homeland, Ninawa is appealing to France's president to use his global sway as both French president and future President of the European Union.

He also urged the French leader to lean on the EU to limit trade linked to deforestation.

In the letter, seen by the AP, Ninawa says: "The current (Brazilian) administration is working to authorise or amnesty the extraction and export of timber, as forest fires devastate flora and fauna to create fields for monocultures of soybeans and for raising cattle."

"This same administration works to legalise and institutionalise the invasion of the territories of the original peoples, considered as an obstacle to agribusiness and to what is wrongly called 'development,'" it adds.

Ninawa left his letter with a police officer at the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris and received a receipt in return. There was no immediate word from Macron's office on whether the letter would be forwarded to the President himself.

Ninawa said indigenous people are "every single day putting our lives at risk so that we can defend nature for all humankind, and said it was "important that each country, each citizen from each country, do their share and also become guardians of Mother Nature."

Bolsonaro has recently tried to improve his environmental credibility, but for most of his presidency has encouraged development within the Amazon region, and dismissed global complaints about its destruction as a plot to hold back the nation's agribusiness.

His administration also has weakened environmental authorities and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections, emboldening land grabbers.

Ninawa wants European decision-makers to stop facilitating exchange and trade of products directly linked to deforestation, such as soya, meat and wood.

He is in France to attend a peace conference in Normandy, on the invitation of environmental group Planete Amazone.

The leader also lamented that the global U.N. COP26 climate talks in Glasgow next month "are not solving the problem of our planet. COP has turned into a big fair for multinational business, with governments trading our biodiversity."

Bolsonaro has been trying to demonstrate to U.S. President Joe Biden's administration that he is serious about addressing climate change and curbing illegal deforestation.

He has toned down his rhetoric celebrating Amazon development and demeaning indigenous populations.

There have been encouraging preliminary signs: the number of deforestation alerts declined year-on-year for two months straight, and the number of forest fires in the first nine months of 2021 has fallen from last year.

But indigenous leaders and other critics question Bolsonaro's  sincerity and say it is too early to say that recent data represents a consolidated trend.