Corporations pile pressure on Brazil over Amazon fires.

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Asset managers, pension funds and companies halt deals and stop buying bonds.

Jair Bolsonaro has made it clear he has no plans to change tack on the Amazon. Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images
▼ Financial pressure is growing on Brazilover fires in the Amazon and the far-right president’s belligerent response to them.
Asset managers, pension funds and companies have issued warnings, halted deals and stopped purchases of government bonds.
The US clothing company VF Corporation, which is behind brands including Timberland, Kipling bags and The North Face, has suspended Brazilian leather purchases, and Norway’s two biggest investors have warned global companies against contributing to environmental damage.
Fitch Solutions Macro Research, formerly BMI Research, issued two reports warning of “increased scrutiny” and “economic risks” after the fires, which numbered 29,000in the Amazon biome in August, the most since 2010.
Fitch said: “We believe that international concern over deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon basin will create headwinds to export demand and investment inflows.”.
VF Corporation said less than 5% of the leather it used to manufacture goods was sourced from Brazil. But the symbolism of the decision by such high-profile brands was not lost on market specialists.
“The disaster has already been done to the environmental image,” said Fabio Silveira, a director and partner at Macrosector, a São Paulo financial consulting outfit. That means that the cost lenders put on Brazil’s environmental risk, previously regarded as close to zero, just went up.”
He added: “Brazilian companies and the Brazilian government lose. Nobody can deny international banks put a cost on environmental risk.”
The emerging market debt team at Norway’s Nordea Asset Management quarantinedBrazilian government bonds, meaning they would no longer buy but only sell. It said: “President Jair Bolsonaro is expected to weaken environmental protections to accommodate extractive activities, agribusiness expansion and development of large-scale infrastructure projects. We have come to conclude that these risks have materialised.”
Thede Rüst, the head of Nordea’s emerging markets debt team, voiced concerns over an important trade deal agreed between the South American trade block Mercosur and the European Union that still needs to be ratified. The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron – involved in a diplomatic brawl with Bolsonaroafter leading a G7 plan to donate $20mto Brazil, which Bolsonaro rejected– have threatened to derail it.
“The link European politicians make between the Mercosur trade agreement to the fires is relevant – it also made us very cautious,” Rüst said. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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asr335704

It is nice that other countries are showing concerns over Amazon fires and are ready to help. Hope Brazil will tackle the Amazon fires soon and can accept the help from other countries if required.

It is every country's responsibility to protect the green cover so that our planet can live on healthy.

jackoftrades

many international companies depend on the Amazon for various products, it gives them big pockets, now if the whole world concentrate on amazon forest fire, will it help..