This is

the CBS I on the world, the New World Report with Ernesto Rujourn, Joseph Umyre.

Ernesto, the news on the Amazon is never easy to understand.

There are fires that are set by nature and by bad actors.

There's also an enormous tussle about how the land should be used

that's cleared for agriculture or for the tribal

natives who are in the Amazon. Now there's a drought and the pictures are

alarming with boats just thrown in the mud and a single channel coming through

the mighty Amazon.

Is this cyclical as something you've lived with your whole life or is this new?

Is this climate change?

Well, John, to a large extent, this is cyclical.

I remember when I was a kid in Brasilia, in the center of

Brazil, which is the Savannah region of center and center west Brazil, not the Amazon. But Brasilia is kind of 300 miles south of the the winter there were days that were really hard to breathe because of the smoke that

came from kind of everywhere from from fires in that region so it's not new. It has to do with the dry season. During six months it doesn't rain.

So maybe this has increased with yes agricultural pressure on the Amazon and the

center west of the country people who want to clear clear lands so this this

explains maybe the increase of fires but this increase has been a phenomenon of the last 20 years and the

Lula broke the previous record, he was, I mean, his administration had the previous record for areas burned in the Amazon from I think 2005.

And now, this year, year now 2024 he broke that record that there have

never been the well as long as we can ascertain so so many fires in such a large area in the Amazon.

So okay I'm not going to blame Lula but the problem is that during the Bolsonaro government, Bolsonaro

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