Supporters of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrate as results are announced in Rio de Janeiro PILAR OLIVARES/Reuters
Defenders of the Amazon rainforest were overwhelmed with relief on 30 October as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva narrowly secured Brazil’s presidency.
Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, beat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by just 1.8 per cent of votes in the divisive presidential election.
The tight victory could save the Amazon just as it has reached a crucial tipping point, say Brazilian environmentalists.
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“During the past four years, the Amazon has been threatened, attacked and destroyed as the government openly promoted environmental crimes,” says Erika Berenguer at the University of Oxford, who was in tears as she spoke to New Scientist. “It was like having to silence a scream inside you every day as you watched the object of your life, your career and passion destroyed. Lula’s election is a victory not only for the region, but for humanity and life itself.”
Deforestation soared to a 15-year-high as Bolsonaro publicly promoted the development of the rainforest, diluted environmental regulation and gutted key environmental institutions of funding and expertise.
The amount of the Amazon being cleared is now nearly 75 per cent higher than when Bolsonaro took office in 2019 and the 13,000 hectares lost in 2021 was the largest annual figure since 2008.
In contrast, Lula has campaigned to protect the rainforest and deforestation plummeted by 72 per cent between 2004 and 2016, when Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, were in power.
Lula has pledged to remove illegal miners and ranchers clearing the Amazon. Among his more ambitious proposals are the subsidisation of sustainable farming, the creation of a ministry dedicated to Indigenous peoples and a national climate change authority that ensures Brazil’s policies are in line with its Paris Agreement goals.
His administration is expected to set new climate targets after they were rolled back by Bolsonaro, says Natalie Unterstell, a Brazilian climate change policy expert at the think tank Talanoa.
Rebuilding environmental institutions and removing illegal groups from the Amazon will be challenging, particularly with a divided congress and a narrow electoral mandate, environmental campaigners warn.
“Stopping the slaughter of indigenous peoples and the devastation of the Amazon will require countering powerful gangs and, very often, the interests of allies and supporters in local governments and the Parliament,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, in a statement.
A series of bills proposed by Bolsonaro, including the legalisation of mining on Indigenous land, could also be approved in the two months before Lula takes office on 1 January.
Environmental groups have said that they won’t hesitate to call out Lula – who has been criticised for overseeing the construction of a megadam in the Amazon – for missteps, and that they expect him to do more than simply reverse the damage caused by his predecessor.
“As the leader of one of the six biggest carbon emitters at a time when the effects of climate change are accelerating around the world, Lula needs to ensure that Brazil increases the ambition of its pledges to the Paris Agreement. Humanity has just 84 months to cut emissions to safeguard the 1.5°C target. Brazil is part of both the problem and the solution,” said Astrini.
Lula’s victory should be a boon not just for the Amazon, but also for Brazilian universities, healthcare and broader science, where Bolsonaro has also cut funding and filled senior posts with unqualified allies.
He slashed public funding for science and technology research by almost half, to its lowest level in more than a decade, and accused public research institutions of falsifying data.
A 2021 inquiry by the Federal Senate of Brazil concluded that Bolsonaro should be charged with “crimes against humanity” for allowing covid-19 to tear through the country, leaving 687,000 Brazilians dead.
The narrow margin of Lula’s victory added to concerns that Bolsonaro could contest the result. The outspoken president has regularly alleged that voting machines are manipulated, without providing evidence.
“We are content that the elections have been held according to the law and, in spite of some incidents, hope that President-elect Lula will give Education and Science, as well as Health, the Environment and Culture the importance they had in his previous government,” says Renato Janine Ribeiro, president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science.
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