While I agree with the sentiment, it is mostly not poor people who are doing this. Sure, often they are used as pawns to start the clearing, but some big miners and landowners, as well as companies, are the ones profiting.

> Better policing and policy is great and all but if poor people are still poor left with no other way to better themselves what else do you expect is going to happen? With no other option people will exploit local natural resources to better themselves.

You're thinking like a WEIRDo - western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic.

Almost all of the inhabitants of the Amazon are uncontacted or barely contacted indigenous peoples who don't share a single one of your values or aspirations. They largely live today as their ancestors lived in the stone age and they are quite content to do so. This means they live in small bands of no more than a couple hundred, build transitory shelters that they use for no more than a year or two, hunt and gather for food, and then move on to greener forest. The damage they cause to the environment self-heals in a couple years, and so their lifestyle is sustainable.

They do not premise their lives on infinite growth and accumulation, the core requirements of capitalism. They do not exploit resources more than is necessary to live their lives.

The Amazon needs nothing more to thrive than to be left alone by Brazilians and other western neighbors.

This comment is classist