BRASILIA (dpa-AFX) - English musician and actor Sting has appealed to the Brazilian government to change the policy that has opened up Amazonia for exploitation.
Sting, a renowned champion of the Amazonian rain forest preservation campaign, made a strongly worded appeal in an elaborate message he posted on Facebook about the raging Amazon rain forest fires.
'We are fast approaching the tipping point where the fires will continue to burn and cannot be put out', Sting said about the wildfires that have been raging for weeks in Brazil, not only killing biodiversity and ecosystems, but also creating breathing problems to thousands of residents in the country.
The winner of 17 Grammy Awards compared Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who took a complacent stand despite the call for serious action by the global community, to Emperor Nero who 'fiddled while Rome burned'.
Sting urged the President to rethink his policies and change his actions and his incendiary rhetoric before it is too late. 'This is no time for fiddling; the world is burning'. Sting's wife Trudie Styler also joined him in issuing a dire warning about the continued inaction.
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE, known as Sting, is one of the world's best-selling music artists.
The singer who founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1987 has been working for three decades with the indigenous people of Amazonia - not only in Brazil but throughout the countries of South America - to protect their land and their rights.
Amazonia is on fire at an unprecedented rate - 80 percent up from last year and with 39 percent more deforestation.
G7 summit offered $22 million to help fight one of the world's worst environmental calamities, but Bolsonaro refused to accept the major financial aid, and demanded apology by French President Emmanuel Macron for calling him rude during the G7 summit.
Conservationists have raised concerns over the right-wing President's environmental policy, accusing him of allowing farmers and loggers to clear the land for cattle ranching and for timber.
The president tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation by saying that such wildfires are common in the dry season.
The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.
Sting made a scathing attack of Bolsonaro by saying, 'Populist leaders citing nationalist agendas, or claiming that climate change and its handmaidens are a hoax, are guilty of much more than standing by and doing nothing'. This is criminal negligence on a global scale, according to him.
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