In an attempt to improve Brazil's image, president Jair Bolsonaro is contracting international public relations firms to launch a communications campaign in international media outlets.
The country wants to prevent international investors from fleeing as Amazon fires increase in the country.
In June, the first month in the dry period, there was an 18 percent increase in the number of fires compared to the same period last year.
Brazil’s Agência Brasileira de Promoção de Exportações e Investimentos will coordinate the campaign with an objective to minimize the financial damage caused by Brazil’s worsening image in light of the Amazon’s deforestation.
Planalto Palace defined a strategy that will contract public relations companies in the United States, Europe, and Asia and provide them with advertising pieces.
The president will order advertising campaigns from Empresa Brasil de Comunicação, a state-owned communications conglomerate about the federal government's effort to reduce burning in the Amazon. The contents produced will be distributed to public relations companies, which will replicate them in foreign media outlets, mainly in the European Union, where the Brazilian government has identified a greater impact on Brazil's image.
Planalto also intends to explore the environmental theme at international fairs and events in which Brazil will participate. One is the universal exhibition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, postponed to 2021.
In parallel, the Ministry of the Environment is preparing a decree that prohibits burning for 120 days in the Amazon rainforest. The measure is one of the Brazilian government's responses to foreign investors' criticism concerning current Brazilian environmental policy.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon