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Amazon fires – Bolsonaro faces backlash after REJECTING £18m to tackle crisis as NASA images show devastating scale of flames
BRAZIL'S President has turned down a £18m offer to help save the burning Amazon rainforest - as new Nasa pictures reveal the scale of the blaze.
Jair Bolsonaro accused the West of treating Brazil like "a colony"; after French President Emmanuel Macron tried to launch an aid plan at the G7 summit.
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International leaders later agreed to provide logistical and financial support to help tackle the raging fires in the the world's largest rain forest.
Mr Macron revealed G7 countries will now release £18m - during a crunch meeting noticeably missed by Donald Trump.
However, Mr Bolsonaro said Mr Macron's plan of an "alliance" to "save" the Amazon treated Brazil "as if we were a colony or no man's land".
A record number of fires are now burning in Brazil - mostly in the Amazon - according to the country's space research agency.
The funding pledge was made as the leaders of the G7 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US - met in Biarritz, France.
Mr Macron said the funds would be made available "immediately" - mainly to pay for extra firefighting planes.
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He then added that France would also "offer concrete support with military in the region within the next few hours".
However, Mr Bolsonaro accused the French leader of launching "unreasonable and gratuitous attacks against the Amazon region."
He then accused the French leader of "hiding his intentions behind the idea of an alliance of G7 countries".
When Mr Trump was asked whether he attended the meeting on climate change which discussed the Amazon crisis he replied “We’re having it in a little while.”
He did not appear to hear when one reporter then pointed out to him that it had already taken place.
News of the G7 cash pledge came as Leonardo DiCaprio donated more than £4m in help to the Amazon rain forest.
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The 44-year-old actor has pledged the money through his environmental foundation, Earth Alliance, which he created with philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs and Brian Sheth.
Earlier we reported how Hercules warplanes are now being used to dump thousands of gallons of water onto more than 9,000 wild fires in the Amazon.
The emergency move comes amid mounting fury over the shocking ongoing destruction of the planet's largest tropical rain forest.
Bolsonaro ordered the sudden military intervention to combat multiple blazes now raging out of control.
A video posted by the country's defence ministry later showed a military plane raining water down onto fires below.
Around 44,000 troops are now on alert and some troops are already heading to six Brazilian states that asked for help.
The states affected by the massive blazes are Roraima, Rondonia, Tocantins, Para, Acre and Mato Grosso.
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The military's first mission will be carried out by 700 troops around the city of Porto Velho, capital of Rondonia.
The military is using two C-130 Hercules aircraft capable of dumping up to 12,000 liters (3,170 gallons) of water onto the fires.
The Brazilian military operations came after widespread criticism of Bolsonaro's handling of the environmental crisis.
He has long described the protection of the rain forest as an obstacle to Brazil's economic development.
The Amazon fires have become a global issue escalating tensions between Brazil and European countries who believe Bolsonaro has neglected commitments to protect biodiversity.
Protesters gathered outside Brazilian diplomatic missions in European and Latin American cities Friday, and demonstrators also marched in Brazil.
'The planet's lungs are on fire. Let's save them! ' read a sign at a protest outside Brazil's embassy in Mexico City.
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The dispute also spilled over into the economic arena when French leader Emmanuel Macron threatened to block a EU trade deal with Brazil on the back of the blazes.
"First we need to help Brazil and other countries put out these fires," he said at the weekend.
The goal is to "preserve this forest that we all need because it is a treasure of our biodiversity and our climate thanks to the oxygen that it emits and thanks to the carbon it absorbs," he said.
Moment thick smoke from Amazon wildfires forces players to quit football match mid-game
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Brazil sends Hercules warplanes to dump tens of thousands of gallons of water on burning Amazon