Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Wednesday that Latin America's Amazon countries will meet in September to discuss both protecting and developing the rainforest region, which has been hit by weeks of devastating fires.
The Brazilian leader also escalated a deeply personal dispute with French President Emmanuel Macron, accusing him of portraying himself as "the one and only person" concerned about the environment.
Bolsonaro's remarks pushed back at international allegations that, on his watch, the weakening of environmental safeguards in Brazil had set the stage for farmers, developers and others to set fires more aggressively this year as a way to clear land, much of it already deforested.
They also highlighted the Brazilian government's contention that some international offers of help to fight the fires were an infringement of Brazilian sovereignty over the region.
Macron and other European leaders argue the fires in the Amazon require a global response because of the ecosystem's critical role in draining heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Macron criticized Bolsonaro for allegedly lying to him about his commitments to biodiversity, prompting the Brazilian to accuse the French leader of evoking his country's colonial past.
On Wednesday, Bolsonaro said Germany and France had tried to "buy" Brazil's sovereignty. The acrimony has sidelined a pledge of USD 20 million from the Group of Seven nations to help protect rainforest in the Amazon, though Bolsonaro said he would accept "bilateral" aid and that Chile was sending four firefighting planes. Britain has pledged USD 12 million and Canada has offered USD 11 million.
All Amazon nations except Venezuela will meet in September "to come up with our own unified strategy for preserving the environment, and also for exploration sustainable in our region," Bolsonaro said after meeting Chilean President Sebastin Piera in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia.
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Latin America countries that contain Amazon rainforest "have sovereignty over the Amazon, that needs to be recognized always," Piera said.
A regional conservationist said "the ideal scenario" would be if the Amazon countries agree on how to preserve the region and receive robust international support in order to do it.
"Sovereignty is certainly a fundamental issue here," said Roberto Troya, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the WWF conservation group. But, he said, the issue can have a negative impact "if used as a shield to isolate and distort the reality of what's going on on the ground."
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