G7 leaders nearing deal to help fight Amazon fires

Cattle graze in the Amazon forest with fire behind them.
(Image credit: Joao Laet/AFP/Getty Images)

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday said leaders at the Group of Seven summit are close to reaching a deal that provides Brazil with "technical and financial help" to fight the fires devastating the Amazon rainforest.

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest, and produces about 20 percent of the planet's oxygen. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who campaigned on a promise to open the Amazon up for mining, logging, and other businesses, was slow to react, and environmentalists and researchers say cattle ranchers and loggers, emboldened by Bolsonaro's rhetoric, are behind most of the fires. On Friday, Bolsonaro finally said the military would fight the blazes, and told world leaders to let him deal with the crisis on his own.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.