[ad_1]
In addition to the chorus of the Ministers of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, and of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, President Jair Bolsonaro blamed the ecologists for the disappearance of the “fire ox” from the Pantanal plain, all to defend the expansion of pastures in the Pantanal and even in the Amazon.
First banal mistake: it was not the environmentalists, but the rapacious cattle implanted at the end of the 70s by ranchers from the south on the plateau adjacent to the Pantanal plain, which expelled the so-called “boi-fireman”.
Another obvious observation ignored by the president: Ranching has always had trouble adapting to the Amazon climate. Funded by the military dictatorship with resources from Sudam (Superintendency of Development of the Amazon), hundreds of agricultural projects were abandoned, causing agrarian conflicts that still persist in southern Pará, for example. As the agronomist, writer and environmentalist José Lutzenberger (1926-2002), Minister of the Environment in the government of President Fernando Collor (1990-1992) told me more than once, trying to plant cattle in the Amazon is at least stupid.
The creation of the expression “boi firefighter” is attributed to the retired Embrapa servant, Arnildo Pott, professor at UFMS (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul), doctor in plant ecology from the University of Queensland, Australia, who has worked for more than 40 years. Pantanal-themed. It is a reference to the activity that the ox exerts during flood cycles when eating native vegetation, preventing it from becoming organic material that can cause and add volume to fires in the Pantanal.
In the Pantanal, the “fire ox” began to disappear from the farms of the plain due to the deforestation of thousands of hectares of forest on the banks of the Taquari River by the new farmers. One of the main rivers that flow into the Pantanal, Taquari began to receive 30 thousand tons of soil per day in an irreversible sedimentation process.
The change of landscape affected the “work” of the firefighters
More than 30 years after the destruction of cattle ranchers began in northern Mato Grosso do Sul, various parts of the Taquari bed were occupied by sandbars. The consequence is that the waters began to permanently flood the native pastures of the farms, changing the natural cycle of floods and droughts.
“The pantaneiros abandoned their farms, taking out the oxen that always fed on the native pastures, helping to lower the height of the pastures, avoiding the accumulation of organic matter. This favors fires, ”says the president of the Pantanal Defense Society, Nilson. de Barros, former head of Embrapa in Corumbá (MS).
The same thesis is defended by the president of the Fundação Homem Pantaneiro, the retired lieutenant colonel of PM Ângelo Rabelo, former commander of the state Forest Police. According to him, the man of the Pantanal plain never cut down native forest to plant pastures in its place. “The northern cattle ranchers are responsible for the flooding of the farms and the disappearance of the ‘fire ox’. Ironically, the northern lands today can be worth R $ 50 thousand per hectare, while those of the Pantanal plain, totally flooded , they do not reach R $ 500 “, said Rabelo.
Farmers are investigated for fires
Also in the north of the state there are cattle ranchers who are being investigated by the Federal Police, on suspicion of having started the fires in the Encontro das Águas Park and in the Serra do Amolar region.
The arrival of heirs and ranchers from other regions to Nhecolândia, the central Pantanal region, is also beginning to bring ecological damage to the region. An investigation by the Civil and Military Police also found that it was on these farms that the fires started in the region. It is very clear that farmers who come from abroad do not live in harmony with nature, unlike the man of the Pantanal.
“The Pantaneiro has lived in harmony with the Pantanal for more than 200 years,” says Rabelo. He was one of the researchers who spoke about the importance of the “fireman ox” during a meeting with Minister Tereza Cristina.
The subject of an anonymous study among environmentalists, the animal began to be ridiculed when it was used as a piece of propaganda by President Bolsonaro and members of his government to defend the expansion of grazing areas in environmentally protected regions.
