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Explanation:
SAO PAULO — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, under international pressure to curb the fires now spiking across the Amazon, is trying to crack down on the farmers and loggers who clear land by burning the rainforest.
But he’s up against long-standing traditions, practices, laws — and some of his own rhetoric.
Farmers in Brazil use fire to clear land. A decades-old law encourages them to invade the Amazon. And Bolsonaro, backed by Brazil’s powerful agricultural lobby, campaigned on promises to open the rainforest to more farming, logging and mining — and against what he called “an industry of fines” at Ibama, the environmental protection agency.
“I won’t allow Ibama to go around issuing fines left and right,” the climate-change skeptic said shortly after his election last year. “The party is going to end.”
