Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil: hope is reborn with Lula
Deforestation in the Amazon has indeed increased by almost 60% during the term of the outgoing far-right president, making the task that awaits the new Brazilian president even more urgent.
© AP/Dolores Ochoa
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
Brazil does
not "need to deforest
" to support its agriculture, said Lula during his investiture speech to Congress in Brasilia on January 1, recalling his goal of "
zero deforestation in the Amazon
".
The international community expects strong gestures from him in this area and, after Bolsonaro's disastrous four years, the Brazilian actors in the defense of the Amazon are regaining hope.
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“
Our goal is to achieve zero deforestation in the Amazon.
Zero greenhouse gas emissions in the energy matrix,
asserted Lula da Silva during his
investiture speech to Congress
.
Brazil does not need to clear to preserve, to maintain and to push back its strategic agricultural frontier.
It is not worth cutting down a single tree.
It is enough to replant the 30 million hectares of land that has been degraded.
So we can live without cutting wood, without burning, and without needing to invade our ecosystems.
»
Lula thus wishes to make Brazil one of the main food producers in the world, a green superpower.
With this in mind, he therefore reaffirmed his commitment to ending deforestation in the Amazon, which has reached its highest level in 15 years under the mandate of Jair Bolsonaro.
Deforestation in the Amazon has indeed increased by almost 60% during the term of the outgoing far-right president, making the task that awaits the new Brazilian president even more urgent.
► To read also:
Brazil: alert on record deforestation in the Amazon
For Paulo Moutinho, scientist at the Center for Environmental Research on the Amazon in Belém, there are actions to be put in place very quickly to curb deforestation.
"
In the Amazon, we have a large area covered by public forests that should be protected,
" he says at the microphone of
Lucile Gimberg
of RFI's science department.
We are talking about 56 million hectares of well-preserved forests.
It's the size of Spain!
If the government decides to allocate this land for conservation or make it land for indigenous peoples, it can drastically reduce deforestation rates quickly, within a year or two.
»
► To read also:
Brazil: burned areas almost doubled in November over one year
“
It will take political will
”
And the researcher notes that “
the other point is to make sustainable use of the wealth of Amazonian biodiversity.
This is called the bioeconomy in Brazil.
This opens up very interesting possibilities in terms of investments around the protection of nature.
There are things that can be done to reduce deforestation and get there quickly.
But it will take political will.
And then we will have to tackle organized crime.
Gold extraction and illegal mining, hectares of public forests invaded, drug and arms trafficking... This organized crime must be eliminated from the Amazon.
»
To lead this fight against deforestation, the most emblematic appointment of the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is that of Marina Silva, 64, who was already Lula's Minister of the Environment from 2003 to 2008. This ministry now takes on crucial importance in the eyes of the international community.
► To read also:
Brazil: Marina Silva and Sonia Guajajara, two key women for the climate and the Amazon
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Brazil
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Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
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