Brazil's environment ministry triggered an outcry Friday by announcing it was halting all operations against wildfires and Amazon deforestation because of budget cuts, before reversing course and saying it would maintain them.

It was the latest awkward moment on the environment for the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right climate change skeptic who has faced scathing international criticism for presiding over surging deforestation and calling for the world's biggest rainforest to be opened to mining and agriculture.

"As of midnight Monday, all operations to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon region and all operations against wildfires in the Pantanal wetlands and other regions will be halted," the environment ministry said in an initial statement.

It said the economy ministry had blocked around 60 million reals ($11 million) in funding to two environmental regulatory agencies, forcing them to suspend operations.

Environmentalists immediately condemned the measure.

"This absurd cancellation... comes at a time when deforestation levels and fires are increasing in the Amazon region and there is a record-breaking number of fires in the Pantanal," the world's biggest tropical wetlands, the World Wildlife Fund's Brazil office said in a statement.

Vice President Hamilton Mourao, who was appointed by Bolsonaro to lead a task force against deforestation, soon intervened to say Environment Minister Ricardo Salles had acted "hastily" and that the funding would not be blocked.

The environment ministry then did a U-turn, issuing a second statement that said the funds had been released and operations "will proceed as normal."

Mourao attributed the fray to a request from Bolsonaro's office for all ministries to make cuts to help fund emergency stimulus payments of 600 reals a month the government has been making to poor Brazilians hit hard by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the cuts are not mandatory, said the vice president.

Political analysts say the stimulus payments have driven Bolsonaro's approval rating to the highest level since he took office in January 2019.

He has been scrambling to find funds to maintain them.

But the president is wary of reviving the international condemnation he faced last year when tens of thousands of fires ravaged the Amazon, raising fears for the future of a resource seen as vital to curbing climate change.

Amazon indigenous protesters end roadblock
Rio De Janeiro (AFP) Aug 27, 2020 - Indigenous protesters who blocked a key highway through the Brazilian Amazon demanding help against deforestation and the coronavirus pandemic said Thursday they were suspending their protest after a judge ordered the government to respond.

Brandishing bows and arrows, dozens of protesters from the Kayapo Mekranoti ethnic group in traditional feather headdresses and body paint blocked highway BR-163 on August 17 outside the northern town of Novo Progresso.

The roadblock severed the main artery used to ship corn and soybeans, two of Brazil's top exports, from the country's central-western agricultural heartland to port.

The protesters had however been lifting the barricade periodically in what they called a "humanitarian" gesture for drivers stranded in the long line of blocked trucks.

They said they were now suspending their protest for 10 days to give the government's indigenous affairs office, FUNAI, and the National Department of Infrastructure and Transportation (DNIT) time to respond to their demands, in line with a federal judge's latest ruling in the dispute.

"The judge gave FUNAI and DNIT 10 days to (respond). If they don't, they'll have to pay a fine of 10,000 reals (about $1,000) a day," said one of the protest leaders, Mudjere Kayapo.

"If we have to, we'll come back and close the highway again," he told AFP.

Federal judge Sandra Maria Correia da Silva had ordered the protesters to end the roadblock, citing the damage to the region's economy.

The protesters initially vowed to defy the order, but said they had now decided to press their case in court instead.

The Kayapo Mekranoti are demanding far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's government release funds they say they are owed for environmental damage the highway caused to their land.

They also want help fighting illegal mining, deforestation and the new coronavirus, which has hit especially hard among indigenous people in the region.

The Kayapo Mekranoti will return "with an even bigger protest" if they do not get a satisfactory response from the government, said Luis Carlos Sampaio, of the Kabu Institute, an indigenous rights group.

"We'll see how the authorities react," he told AFP.

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