Brazil: Cosmetics maker Natura urges gov to protect Amazon

Brazilian cosmetics maker Natura & Co is pressing government officials, the private sector, and local communities to bolster environmental protections in the Amazon after fires this year disrupted its supply chain, its chief executive told Reuters. 

Soon to become the world’s fourth-largest beauty group after acquiring rival Avon Products, Natura is advocating sustainable development of the Amazon without antagonizing right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has called for greater economic exploitation of the vast region.

“It seems to me the new government is critical of existing control mechanisms but has not yet set in motion alternatives,” Natura CEO João Paulo Ferreira said in an interview late on Friday, November 29. 

Under Bolsonaro, who took office at the start of this year, forest fires surged in August, the most for the month since 2010. That backslide triggered global outcry about his government’s policies toward the world’s largest tropical rainforest, considered key to the fight against climate change because of the amounts of carbon dioxide it absorbs. 

Reuters reported in August that Bolsonaro’s government had systematically weakened Brazil’s environmental agency, grounding an elite enforcement team and forbidding agents from destroying machinery used in illegal deforestation.

Full Content: Reuters

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