Elections Brazil 2022: Importance for the Amazon

Climate researcher Niklas Höhne believes that when Jair Bolsonaro and former head of state Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fight for presidency in distant Brazil on Sunday, we in Germany shouldn’t be indifferent. Why: It depends on the next government whether the Amazon rainforest can be preserved in its current form or not, says the famous scientist from the University of Wageningen.

The Amazon region, on the other hand, which extends into nine countries in South America and is the distance between Berlin and Baghdad, is considered the “green lung” of the earth and is therefore of fundamental importance for the global climate. Much of the area that stores a lot of carbon is in Brazil.

According to Nature magazine, there is only one choice for the largest country in Latin America and the world when voting for the president. “A second term for Jair Bolsonaro would pose a threat to science, democracy and the environment,” states the editorial in the latest issue.

Bolsonaro has been in office since January 2019. During this period, deforestation and fires in the Brazilian Amazon have risen again after an earlier decline. Critics accuse the right-wing politician of creating a social climate in which farmers, settlers and others feel encouraged to illegally seize land. He also specifically weakened environmental and control authorities as well as indigenous authority. “We can only hope that Sunday’s ballot heralds the end of the destruction of nature,” said Roberto Maldonado, Brazilian expert from WWF Germany.

Although former left-wing head of state Lula da Silva wasn’t exactly known as a green during his first two terms (early 2003 – late 2010), he put economic interests above nature conservation. But after an initial spike, the loss of the world’s largest and most biodiverse tropical forest has decreased significantly due to a mix of environmental policies. Lula also announced that if he wins the election: “We will end illegal gold mining and fight deforestation.”

For example, the Amazon fund for rainforest protection could be relaunched, in which Germany is also involved. Furthermore, indigenous areas should be better protected and environmental authorities should be strengthened again. Scientific studies have shown that indigenous peoples are the best “forest stewards” in the fight against environmental damage and climate change. According to WWF Germany, only 1.6% of deforestation in Brazil between 1985 and 2020 occurred on indigenous land. But the situation is tense.

“Shortly before the decisive elections, there is a climate of fear, especially among indigenous people and environmentalists,” said Maldonado, an expert from WWF Brazil. They feared that Bolsonaro’s supporters had radicalized, received death threats and some have already fled the country. In 2021 alone, according to Eliane Fernandes, an officer of the Society for Threatened Peoples, 176 indigenous people were murdered in Brazil. There are also threats, injuries, racism and sexualized violence.

“There has been a series of regressions. If Bolsonaro is re-elected, the situation will deepen, “says Marcio Astrini, CEO of the Brazilian climate think tank Observatório do Clima.” His re-election could mean a loss of up to 100,000 square kilometers of forest in four years. ” once it would push the Amazon region strongly towards the so-called turning point, after which it will turn into a steppe.

The “Amazon Against the Clock” study, in which the umbrella organization of indigenous groups of the Amazon Basin (Coica) participated, shows that the entire Amazon region is in a “tipping point crisis”. According to this, deforestation and severe forest damage combined have already reached 26 percent of the region. However, urgent measures are needed to protect the remaining 74%.