UPDATE - G7 countries to fund over $20M for Amazon fires

ADDS REMARKS FROM BRAZIL'S PRESIDENT

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - French President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday that G-7 countries agreed to provide more than $20 million to Amazonian countries to help the country with rainforest fires which reduce biodiversity and speed global warming.

"Immediately, we will offer financial support of at least €20 million [$22.2 million] to the Amazonian countries that will let us know their needs," Macron said in a news conference at the G7 summit in Biarritz, France.

Noting that France will also offer military support to the region, he said an initiative for the Amazon will be officially be launched at the UN General Assembly next month.

"The Amazon absorbs 14% of global CO2 [carbondioxide]. Losing the first lungs of the planet is a global problem. No country can say that it's about the only one," the French president also tweeted.

Therefore, the G7 is mobilizing to respond to the crisis, he added.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro responded on social media that he is in conversation with his Colombian counterpart to develop a joint plan between the majority of countries on the Amazon to "guarantee the sovereignty and natural wealth."

Macron has "different intentions" behind the idea of a G7 alliance to save the Amazon and is treating the region "as if we were a colony or a nobody's land," according to Bolsonaro, who said Macron's "unreasonable attacks" on the Amazon are not acceptable.

The decision to fundi t Amazonian countries follows Macron's suggestion Thursday to discuss the issue during the G7 summit.

But Bolsonaro hit back, accusing Macron of "a misplaced colonialist mindset."

"I regret that President Macron seeks to instrumentalize an internal issue of Brazil and other Amazonian countries for personal political gains," he tweeted.

Even though Bolsonaro accused environmental groups of starting the wildfires, without evidence, the Amazon Environmental Research Institute said the growing number of fires is related to deforestation.

Brazil's National Institute for Space Research said the number of wildfires in the country in 2019 has risen 83% from to the previous year.