Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seems to have fulfilled one of his most important election promises. Since he took office in January, deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has declined dramatically.
In January, some 167 square kilometers of forest were cleared, according to government data. That is 61 percent less than in the same period a year earlier. It is also the smallest monthly number in more than eight years.
One of Lula’s main election promises was to curtail the massive deforestation initiated by his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. In January, Lula’s Brazilian climate watchdog carried out the first raids on notorious forest clearers.
At the climate summit in Egypt, Lula reiterated that deforestation of the Amazon rainforest must be completely stopped by 2030. This must be done with the help of an international fund. “Brazil is back,” confirmed Lula.
Under Lula, the so-called Amazon Fund was restored. That was frozen under Bolsonaro because of “numerous abuses in projects”. The then president did not provide evidence for this.
The fund contains at least 1.2 billion dollars (more than 1.1 billion euros). This week made news agency Reuters announced that the United States is considering a massive donation to the fund. This Friday, President Joe Biden and Lula will meet at the White House.
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Lula has already managed to limit deforestation in the Amazon
Lula’s predecessor Bolsonaro denied climate change, ignored the climate summits and committed to deforestation of the Amazon forest, resulting in high CO2 emissions. Lula was the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010. Then he also succeeded in slowing down the deforestation of the Amazon.
The Brazilian branch of the World Wildlife Fund is happy with the government figures. “It is positive to see this development,” said spokesman Daniel Silva. “But it is still too early to speak of a trend break.”
For example, the organization points out that it was quite cloudy in January. This makes it more difficult to measure how much forest has been felled.
