Brazilian President Jair Bolsonara doesn’t want any handouts from the G7, so he has rejected the $20 million the group has offered to combat the Amazon fires calling it “colonialist and imperialist.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron spearheaded the climate talks at this year’s G7 meeting with one of the big issues on the table being the crisis in the Amazon region. The rainforest has been burning at a record rate for more than three weeks.

Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, showed the administration’s disdain for the help offered by France and the rest of the G7 countries:

“Brazil is a democratic, free nation that never had colonialist and imperialist practices, as is perhaps is the objective of the Frenchman Macron.”

President Bolsonaro echoed the same sentiments on Twitter complaining that the G7 group is treating Brazil like a “colony or no man’s land”:

- Não podemos aceitar que um presidente, Macron, dispare ataques descabidos e gratuitos à Amazônia, nem que disfarce suas intenções atrás da ideia de uma “aliança” dos países do G-7 para “salvar” a Amazônia, como se fôssemos uma colônia ou uma terra de ninguém.

— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) August 26, 2019

It shouldn’t be all that surprising that Bolsonaro rejected the money to stop the Amazon fires when he is likely the reason they were started in the first place. The Brazilian president has been pushing for deforestation so that the Amazon area can be used for business, and he has shown that he is more than willing to undermine the rights of the indigenous people who call the rainforest home.

More at The New York Times and Business Insider.

And if you are wondering how you can help save the Amazon, read our viral post: “Why doesn’t Jeff Bezos help save the real Amazon, tweets George Takei. And here are 7 things YOU can do to help.”