Despite opposition from trade unions on both sides of the Atlantic, the neoliberal EU continues to sign free-trade deals with Latin American states, says Bert Schouwenburg. Plus letters from Sara Starkey, Steve Edwards, Michael Stone and Stephen Andrews

The calamitous fires laying waste to the Amazon rainforest (Report, 28 August) make a mockery of the European commission’s claim that a blockbuster free-trade agreement with the Mercosur (South American common market) countries will enhance what they euphemistically refer to as “sustainable development”. On the contrary, the agreement will merely lock in the South American republics’ historic dependency on the export of agricultural commodities such as genetically modified soya, beef and sugar, much of which comes from savannah and forest land that has been destroyed by huge agri-business combines. Local resistance to the destruction of their lands has been met with repression and violence, particularly in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, where rightwing extremist governments treat their indigenous populations with contempt.

Despite sustained opposition from trade unions on both sides of the Atlantic, the EU continues to sign free-trade deals with Latin American states such as Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras regardless of appalling human rights violations, displacement of peoples and environmental degradation, and all in the name of sustainable development. Given the scale of the disaster in Brazil, perhaps the neoliberal EU will finally heed the old North American warning that only after every tree has been cut down and every river poisoned will people realise that you cannot eat money.

Bert Schouwenburg

(Trade union adviser), London

• We can blame President Jair Bolsonaro as much as we like, but he is a capitalist, like us in the west. Until the rich west stops eating animals, Brazil will go on tearing down their forests to grow grain to feed our intensively farmed animals; and until the rich stop importing Brazilian beef, the trees will be cut down or burned to rear cattle. It is like a tap running and overflowing on the floor. It really does not help by mopping the floor if you don’t turn off the tap. Go vegan: that is the answer to turning off the tap.

Sara Starkey

Tonbridge, Kent

• Your headline (In the burning Amazon, all our futures are now at stake, 23 August) very neatly sums up our present, constantly predicted situation, one which for decades has been ignored just as predictably. I am at present finishing the draft of a post-apocalyptic novel where, 500 years in the future, a small, scientific and scholarly community in a devastated world tries to investigate the few extant historical records to find out how the ultimate catastrophe was allowed to happen.

I suggest that such investigators will be appalled, not only by the malign stupidity of politicians like Trump, Bolsonaro, Morrison and their solipsistic elites but also by the inaction of the majorities, which were supposed to be intelligent and sane. The time for gentle persuasion is over. The UN must move immediately to put Brazil under the strictest economic sanctions (the only exceptions being firefighting technology and support). It should be made clear that these sanctions will last until the fires are out or Bolsonaro and his cretinous crew are kicked out, whichever takes longer. Please, no pious platitudes about overriding democracy; tell that one to Trump. Eliane Brum is right, all our futures are now at stake – so everyone on the planet has a vote on its survival.

Steve Edwards

Haywards Heath, West Sussex

• The answer is simple. Let Unesco immediately declare the Amazon rainforest a World Heritage Site. This will protect the whole area under the 1972 convention. Brazil, and the seven other countries involved, may receive attractive financial compensation for their custodianship of a vital international asset.

Michael Stone

Moretonhampstead, Devon

• Heartening though it may be that international leaders are taking the deliberate destruction of the Amazon rainforest seriously, can we now expect similar proposed trade bans on Canada (Tar sands – the most destructive project on earth?), Australia (third largest exporter of CO 2 in fossil fuels), and the US, whose president gives oxygen to these government actions by withdrawing from the Paris accord?

Stephen Andrews

Charlbury, Oxfordshire

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