Brazil: the Amazon rainforest turns a page after the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro

The Brazilians chose, Sunday, October 30, the course that their country will take for the next four years.

And they decided it would be greener.

Because on the environmental level, everything opposes the outgoing far-right head of state Jair Bolsonaro and the left-wing leader Lula. 

While Jair Bolsonaro is wallowing in silence, his rival assured, after his victory, that Brazil was "ready to play the leading roles again in the fight against climate change", before hammering that "Brazil and planet [needed] a living Amazon". 

“We will reinstate careful monitoring of the Amazon, we will fight against illegal mining, deforestation and the expansion of agricultural land,” Lula added. 

By playing the card of protecting the Amazon, Lula seizes on an ecological symbol that worries the Western world.

Thus, as soon as Lula won, Norway, the main funder for the protection of the Amazon rainforest, announced that it was restoring its envelope of 487 million euros that it had frozen since Jair Bolsonaro came to power, in January 2019. 

“Regarding Lula, we note that during the campaign he emphasized the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and the protection of the indigenous populations of the Amazon,” Norwegian Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement. telephone interview with AFP.

"That's why we look forward to getting in touch with his teams, as quickly as possible, to prepare for a resumption of the historically good collaboration between Brazil and Norway," he added.

Conversely, "Jair Bolsonaro's record is catastrophic because his government was anti-environmental. We are on an ultra-liberal ideology and for him, all the laws in favor of the environment are only obstacles to the production", summarizes François-Michel Le Tourneau, geographer and research director at the CNRS. 

One of the most emblematic victims of this policy is the Amazon rainforest, 60% of whose surface is in Brazil.

Worrying signals have multiplied in recent weeks.

A group of Amazonian environmental organizations (RAISG) and the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (Coica) have drawn up an alarming observation, in a report (Amazonia against the clock) published on September 6: the Amazon forest is in the process of reach its "tipping point".

Once it crosses it, it will no longer be able to regenerate and will turn into a drier ecosystem, comparable to that of a savannah. 

When "agribusiness" comes before the planet

In question in particular: the agricultural activity which has tripled since 1985 and which is responsible for 84% of the deforestation of the Amazon.

The NGO Greenpeace attributes this result to the policy of the current Brazilian president, an ardent defender of "agribusiness".

"Supported by Jair Bolsonaro since he came to power in 2019, agro-industrialists voluntarily set fire to the forest to free up the space needed for soy crops and livestock," reads a statement. 

For environmentalists, the situation is particularly worrying.

The world's largest rainforest has seen more wildfires in the first nine months of the year than in all of 2021, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), a Brazilian research center which measures the deforestation of the Amazon. 

>> To read also on France 24:

These fires have been particularly devastating this summer: "in August 2022, more than 33,000 fire outbreaks were recorded, the highest number since 2010 [and] nearly 17,000 fires were recorded at the beginning of the month of September, in just one week," said Greenpeace. 

Questioned on the subject, Thursday, September 29, during a televised debate, Jair Bolsonaro denied in block.

"We haven't heard of any forest fires in the Amazon, other than the ones that usually happen," he said.

Jair Bolsonaro, whose father was a gold digger in the Amazon in the 1980s, is also openly in favor of another factor in the destruction of the forest: the expansion of mining activities, including in protected areas such as indigenous reserves. 

"Jair Bolsonaro and his government have succeeded in rendering the state tools for environmental protection inoperative, for example by cutting funding from the Ministry of the Environment and its right arm, Ibama", adds the researcher François-Michel Le Tourneau.

"This means that the authorities can no longer carry out checks on the ground. It's exactly as if we imagined a highway without any police," continues the specialist. 

Forgotten, the old quarrels 

In 2021, the budget devoted to public bodies for the preservation of the environment was indeed divided by three, compared to 2014, the year when it was the highest, according to a study carried out by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro ( UFRJ), with the NGO Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA).

Faced with this lackluster record, Lula has built his ecological program in opposition to that of his main rival.

The left-wing candidate pledges to implement a zero-tolerance policy against illegal gold panning, deforestation and fires in the Amazon.

In particular, he intends to rely on public bodies for the preservation of the environment such as Ibama. 

Twenty days before the presidential election, the candidate of the Workers' Party also reconciled with his ex-minister of Ecology, Marina Silva, in order to "beat Bolsonaro".

The break dates back to 2008, following a disagreement between Marina Silva and Lula over the construction of the huge hydroelectric power station in Belo Monte, in the Amazonian state of Para.

A project launched by Lula and supported by Dilma Rousseff, at the time Prime Minister. 

>> To (re) see on France 24:

During Lula's first year in office, in 2003, deforestation in the Amazon had also reached an all-time high.

Some 27,772 square kilometers of forest had been razed, twice as much as the 13,038 square kilometers under Bolsonaro in 2021. But the Lula government then managed to gradually reduce this deforestation to historically low levels.

In 2010, when he left power, it was four times lower than in 2003.

Today, his re-election "would prevent the disappearance of 75,960 square kilometers of Amazonian forest by 2030, an area equivalent to that of Panama", concludes a recent study carried out by researchers from the University of 'Oxford, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and INPE for the specialized site Carbon Brief. 

Reducing deforestation "would also significantly reduce Brazil's emissions if accompanied by a new forest restoration effort," they add.  

A right-leaning parliament and 14 Bolsonarian governors

But the path promises to be strewn with pitfalls.

The legislative elections of October 2 did not work in favor of Lula.

Jair Bolsonaro's liberal party has become the leading formation in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

Brazil is a highly decentralized country where regional authorities have extensive powers.

"The Brazilian Congress is generally very fragmented and the agricultural lobby is very powerful so it's a safe bet that this will determine future environmental policy", adds François-Michel Le Tourneau of the CNRS. 

Since Sunday, Brazil has also had 14 Bolsonarist governors in 27 states.

Among them, some are close to Jair Bolsonaro, like Tarcisio Gomes, the governor of the state of São Paulo, the richest and most populous in Brazil. 

The map of Brazil, between brown (Bolsonaro) and red (Lula).

The victory of the leader of the PT was essentially possible thanks to the narrow victory in Minas (50.2% for Lula) and the lower than expected delay in Sao Paulo (55.2% "only" for JB).

pic.twitter.com/uf8QxNa2PA

— Bruno Meyerfeld (@brunomeyerfeld) October 31, 2022

For François-Michel Le Tourneau, the election of Lula nevertheless appears to be a good signal for the Amazon forest.

"What could change, with the re-election of Lula, is that the Brazilian law on the preservation of the environment is finally applied," he says.

A big step for the climate, after four years of Bolsonaro presidency.

Discover the webdoc devoted to the presidential election in Brazil © Graphic studio France Médias Monde

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app