How are things with Lula da Silva in the Amazon case Eight months after taking office? In the aftermath of the Summit, in Belém, where the 8th and 9th took place, in addition to Brazil, the other seven countries linked to the forest, the tone was more disappointment than hope because of the embarrassment of the final statement and the apparent contradictions of the host. However, compared to Jair Bolsonaro, whose commitment to the environment was classified as toxic by environmental groups, the current president of the republic is still seen as a breath of fresh air on the planet.
“If there is a tension between the environment and the economy in the Lula government, there wasn’t even that tension in Bolsonaro,” said Rogério Machado, a professor of chemistry and the environment at Mackenzie Presbyterian University and São Bernardo College. “Here’s a number: under Bolsonaro, about 1,000 agrochemicals entered Brazil, none of them were validated outside the country, thanks to the role of lobbyists trying in this way to get the agribusiness to do what they wanted. Fortunately, this widespread mess is now past “.
The academic also recalls that “the former environment minister [Ricardo Salles] was recorded and said the government could take advantage of the distraction caused by the pandemic to “let the cattle pass”, that is, to take measures such as those of pesticides without anyone noticing”. only his eyes, but also encouraged a Minister of the Environment cannot close his eyes, let alone encourage environmental crimes”.
“Lula’s approach,” emphasizes Machado, “despite the understandable criticism and some contradictions between words and deeds, is very different from Bolsonaro’s. That is why today the world looks at Brazil with great attention but also with great hope”.
To support this hope, preliminary data from the Space Research Institute indicates that in the first half of this year, the total number of deforestation alerts in the Amazon was 2,416 km2, a decrease of 39% compared to the same period last year. Between January and June 2023, deforestation in the Amazon decreased by 33.6%.
Thus, even in Hollywood, Lula is applauded, compared to Bolsonaro. “Many give part of the credit [pela diminuição do desmatamento] to Lula, who, after taking office, began restoring policies to protect the Amazon and indigenous rights,” Leonardo DiCaprio wrote on social networks. “With Bolsonaro, deforestation reached its highest level in 15 years,” the actor (and environmental activist) concluded ).
Bethlehem without a star
However, another actor closely associated with ecology, Mark Ruffalo, criticized the conclusions of the recent Amazon summit. “Fortunately, this summit led by Lula has finally established the most important protections for indigenous peoples. Thank you for listening to the voices of those on the front lines of the climate crisis,” the star began. “But it breaks my heart to see that the Belém Declaration has no concrete goals to protect the rainforest,” he criticized.
Lula invited Ruffalo to visit the Amazon and replied, “It was another step towards transforming the region with a model that combines sustainable development and environmental conservation.”
Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, agreed with Ruffalo. “There’s no way eight Amazon countries can’t make a bold statement in a scenario like this that deforestation should be zero and that looking for oil in the middle of the forest isn’t a good idea,” he criticized, quoted by the paper. Folha de S. Paulo.
“The summit’s closing statement is disappointing in several respects, but mainly for the fact that it lacks clear and concrete commitments pointing to overcoming the relationship our countries have with the Amazon today,” added Leandro Ramos, director of programs at Greenpeace Brazil.
“Augustine of Hippo, or Saint Augustine, is said to have said:” God, give me chastity and self-control, but not now (Confessions VIII, 7) “, Amazon rulers, like the saint, parade with great intentions, but avoid endangering them with concrete. attitudes to carry them out,” wrote Hélio Schwartsman, columnist for Bed sheet.
According to DN, Rogério Machado is not pessimistic. “Of course the criticisms leveled are not wrong, the meeting was superficial, no date was set, but it served that purpose, it was programmed to serve as a first contact, a conversation starter, without any major studies leading up to it”.
“The environmental panic button should always be in front of us, yes, because those who control the big forests, like the Amazon or Borneo, are poor countries, but it’s still good news to talk about the subject,” he noted .
“I therefore see the summit with eyes more optimistic than pessimistic, because it was not a meeting that was negative: this Amazon cooperative organization [OTCA] started in 1978 and no one in Brazil even knew it existed, just being talked about again is important.”
“Among the points that make me optimistic are the reference to the ‘point of no return’, which was significant because there are places in the Amazon where there is nothing else to do, the reference to the ‘Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda “, and the progress on indigenous civil rights issues, by integrating them into the discussion, in Brazil this had never been discussed before”.
For Mauricio Voivodic, executive director of the World Wide Fund-Brazil, this acknowledgment by the heads of state of the point of no return in the Amazon and the indigenous issue are in fact positives. “The protection of the rights of indigenous peoples, the legal demarcation of their lands and the recognition that the region is reaching a point of no return are major advances Brazil has made in the Belém Declaration,” agrees Diego Casaes, director of campaigns at Usage.
Petro and oil
However, the oil exploration in the Amazon was a wound that Colombian head of state Gustavo Petro put his finger on, in the presence of counterparts, such as Guyana’s president Irfaan Ali, and Lula herself, who are hesitant on the subject. . “If oil is produced in the forest, humanity will be killed,” Petro said.
“Oil is an environmental, economic and political challenge,” says Rogério Machado. “Brazil went from third to almost first world thanks to the pre-salt discovery, therefore one cannot ignore that there is a society still dependent on oil, caution is advised”.
In May of this year, Brazil’s Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) rejected a request from state-owned oil company Petrobras to investigate the feasibility of offshore oil exploration off the coast of Amapá. The agency alleged “technical inconsistencies” in the request. Environment Minister Marina Silva welcomed Ibama’s decision. Lula not so much. The Brazilian president even said in recent days that Amapá “can keep on dreaming”.
To add to the political tension, Randolfe Rodrigues, senator from Rede, Marina’s party, for Amapá, the state in question, withdrew from formation to join Lula’s PT.
“Yes, there is tension between Lula and Marina,” Machado tells DN. “Marina, who is an excellent environmentalist, looks at the environment, but Lula has to look at the environment and the economy, at 200 million people and their needs, at 200 million, of which the northern hemisphere also needs it, as a market” .
Speaking on the subject a few days before the Belém Summit, Lula said: “First, it is necessary to examine whether it has what we think it has and if so, make a decision. What to do? How to exploit it? prevent a disaster that will harm our precious shores of the Atlantic in the Amazon?”.
To make the decision, in addition to Marina Silva, who opposes exploration because of the risks it could pose to the region’s ecosystem and the climate crisis, Lula also hears Alexandre Silveira, Minister of Mines and Energy, who is in favor of a measure that Petrobras benefits more than 1.1 million barrels of oil per day.
There is no indication yet of how Lula will act, but history provides clues. In 2008, Lula had to choose between preserving a population of catfish, a South American river fish, as defended by his then minister Marina, or building a hydroelectric dam, a project supported by the President of the Civil House, Dilma Rousseff . It goes without saying which path Lula chose, just remember the consequences of the decision: Marina resigned and broke with the Workers’ Party, with whom she reconnected only 14 years later, and soon after that Dilma became by herself.
IN NUMBERS
-67%
Between 2003 and 2015, which includes the first two Lula governments and the first Dilma government, the deforestation rate fell by 67%, according to the Prodes project, conducted by the Space Research Institute (Inpe)
+73%
According to those figures, the deforestation rate increased by 73% in the first three years of the Bolsonaro government. There are no data yet for 2022
39%
Preliminary data from Inpe indicated that in the first half of this year, the total number of deforestation warnings in the Amazon was 2,416 km2, a decrease of 39% compared to the same period last year.
710 km2
As of March 24, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest had fallen from 941 km² in 2022 to 710 km² in 2023, said Ane Alencar, director of science at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research.
96 000 000
According to a study published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports
¾
Three of the four deforested hectares show signs of illegality, reports MapBiomas, an initiative of the Climate Observatory
171 billion
Destruction of the Amazon would cost 920 billion reais, about 171 billion euros, according to World Bank projection
Source: DN
