Brazil Rejects $20 Million Amazon Rainforest Fire Aid From G7: 'We Are Thankful, But...'

Brazil has turned down the offer of $20 million aid by G-7 countries to fight the fires raging across the Amazon rainforests.

The Brazilian President's Special Communications Office said the country will not accept the money pledged by the G-7 summit in France on Monday.

News site G1 Globo quoted the chief of staff of President Jair Bolsonaro saying it would be better if the aid fund is used somewhere in Europe than in Brazil.

“We are thankful, but maybe those resources would be more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni, COS, was quoted as saying by G1 Globo.

The G-7 group, the club of world's seven biggest economies held their annual summit in the French resort of Biarritz from Aug 24-26.

At the Summit, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the forum would extend $20 million as an aid to combat the fires.

The G-7 leaders promised to make $20 million immediately available to Brazil and Bolivia, for hiring more fire-fighting planes.

The aid announced by the French and Chilean presidents jointly said the fund would cover a program of reforestation and the fine details will be unveiled at the UN general assembly meeting in September.

Brazil reminds Macron about Notre Dame fire

The Amazon fires have led to an open spat between Bolsonaro and Macron as the latter wanted an assertive response to the Amazon fires.

According to Bolsonaro, an international alliance to save the Amazon looks like treating Brazil like “a colony or no man's land,” and is an attack on the country's sovereignty.

French President Macron told reporters that an international alliance is needed to save the rainforest.

“We must respond to the call of the forest, which is burning today in the Amazon,” said Macron.

Rejecting the G-7 offer, Lorenzoni also targeted the French president.

“Macron is unable to avoid a preventable fire in a church that is at a World Heritage Site and he wants to show us what is for our country? He has a lot to look after at home and the French colonies,” Lorenzoni said in an apparent reference to the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in April.

“Brazil is a democratic nation, free and never had colonial or imperialistic practices which might be the objective of Frenchman Macron,” Lorenzoni quipped.

Bolsonaro's government has been under international pressure over its Amazon policies even before the fires broke out.

Protesting against Brazil’s Amazon policies, Germany and Norway called off their contributions to Brazil's Amazon Fund in August.

G7 assistance a pittance

Meanwhile, many environmental groups said the fire aid by G7 was insufficient and dismissed it as “chump change.”

“The offer of $20m is chump change, especially as the crisis in the Amazon is directly linked to overconsumption of meat and dairy in the UK and other G7 countries,” commented Richard George, the head of forests for Greenpeace UK.

However, in some interesting Trump news, U.S. President Donald Trump, who skipped the G-7 summit’s session on climate change said at a press conference later that “the wealth of the U.S is not going to be lost on dreams, on windmills, which, frankly, aren’t working too well.”