Brazil Rejects G7 Offer to Help End Amazon Fires

Brazil has rejected the offer of the Group Seven summit countries for helping to put out fires in the Amazon rainforest.

Earlier, the French President Emmanuel Macron had said that 22 million dollars would be released in this regard. Macron had addressed this issue during the G7 summit, where he hosted the world leaders in Biarritz, France.

Macron had previously tweeted that fires in the amazon rainforest is an “international crisis”.

In return, the Brazilian ministers said that money is not the solution, accusing the foreign countries’ powers of their desire to “take control” of the Amazon.

Furthermore, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, told the Globo news website, commenting on the G7 leaders’ offer of monetary aid: "Thanks, but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe.”

He added "Macron cannot even avoid a predictable fire in a church that is part of the world's heritage, and he wants to give us lessons for our country?" Mr Lorenzoni added, in a reference to the fire that hit Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in April.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo tweeted “there are already mechanisms under the auspices of the UN climate convention to fight deforestation.”

Adding that “efforts of some political currents to extrapolate real environmental issues into a fabricated 'crisis' as a pretext for introducing mechanisms for external control of the Amazon are very evident.”

Greenpeace France has described the G7's response to the crisis as "inadequate given the urgency and magnitude of this environmental disaster", it said in a statement.

The Amazon, largest rainforest in the world, is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming. It comes across a number of countries, but the majority of it falls within Brazil.