Brazil’s Bolsonaro issues decrees to boost mining of Amazon

By DAVID BILLER
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has issued two decrees to boost gold prospecting with a focus on the Amazon rainforest. The texts published Monday in the official gazette spurred outrage from environmental and Indigenous rights groups, which warned they would exacerbate the illegal destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest and pollution of its waterways. Bolsonaro has been an outspoken champion of mining the Amazon, and nonprofit groups have been sounding the alarm about how both the president’s comments and reduction of environmental oversight during his term have emboldened illegal miners.