Opinion: For Lula and the World, the Tough Job of Saving the Amazon Begins
New York Times
OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
Dec. 31, 2022, 11:00 a.m. ET
5 MIN READ
A tree that is about to be planted as part of a reforestation project in Nova Mutum, Brazil.Credit...Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
By Heriberto Araujo
Mr. Araujo is an investigative journalist who has reported extensively on the Amazon.
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is sworn in as president of Brazil for an unprecedented third term on Sunday, one of his most pressing problems will be an Amazon at a dangerous tipping point.
Safeguarding Brazil’s rainforests, as Mr. Lula pledged to do in his campaign, may well be the defining issue of his presidency. But he will face an uphill battle. Mr. Lula will need the world’s help to rein in illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers. He will also have to build coalitions in a divided Congress and among rural elites who remain skeptical of Brazil’s environmental commitments.
In the world’s largest rainforest, the enemy no longer takes the form it did in the 1990s and 2000s, when ruthless pioneers cleared the jungle, bribed officials and forged deeds to claim land. Today, Mr. Lula will have to contend with sprawling violent criminal networks that resort to fraud to introduce products tainted by unlawful practices into global supply chains.
Once he took office in 2019, Mr. Bolsonaro scaled back or weakened environmental protections and pushed to open Indigenous lands to commercial exploitation. As a result, the annual average deforestation rates increased by 60 percent during his presidency, compared with the previous four years. Parts of the forest now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb.
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