{"id":8026,"date":"2023-01-23T00:50:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T05:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8026"},"modified":"2023-01-23T00:50:06","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T05:50:06","slug":"brazils-new-president-works-to-reverse-amazon-deforestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8026","title":{"rendered":"Brazil’s New President Works to Reverse Amazon Deforestation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil\u2019s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency\u2019s headquarters \u2014 even its coffee room \u2014 as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing.<\/p>\n

The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil\u2019s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month under newly inaugurated President Luiz In\u00e1cio da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say has allowed the Amazon\u2019s resources to be exploited<\/a> at the expense of the environment.<\/p>\n

As Wapichana performed the ritual, Indigenous people and government officials enthusiastically chanted \u201cYoohoo! Funai is ours!\u201d \u2014 a reference to the agency she will lead.<\/p>\n

Kayapo leader Raoni Metuktire, from left, Joenia Wapichana, the first indigenous congresswoman to be elected to Brazil’s lower house, and indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara, attend a meeting with lawmakers to discuss land rights and the Chamber of Deputies’ role in the protection of the environment in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, April 25, 2019. Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Luiz In\u00e1cio da Silva’s election to a third term as Brazil’s president. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres, file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula\u2019s narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges<\/a> he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation.<\/p>\n

To carry out these goals, Lula is appointing well-known environmentalists and Indigenous people to key positions at Funai and other agencies that Bolsonaro had filled with allies of agribusiness and military officers.<\/p>\n

In Lula\u2019s previous two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and Indigenous issues. And he is certain to face obstacles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the right first steps.<\/p>\n

The federal officials Lula has already named to key posts \u201chave the national and international prestige to reverse all the environmental destruction that we have suffered over these four years of the Bolsonaro government,\u201d said George Porto Ferreira, an analyst at Ibama, Brazil\u2019s environmental law-enforcement agency.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s supporters, meanwhile, fear that Lula\u2019s promise of stronger environmental protections will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development, and punish people for activities that had previously been allowed. Some supporters with ties to agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical assistance to rioters who earlier this month stormed Brazil\u2019s presidential palace<\/a>, Congress and Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

When Bolsonaro was president, he defanged Funai and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This enabled deforestation to soar to its highest level since 2006<\/a>, as developers and miners who took land from Indigenous people faced few consequences.<\/p>\n

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Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines handed out for illegal activities in the Amazon declined by 38% compared with the previous four years, according an analysis of Brazilian government data by the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.<\/p>\n

One of the strongest signs yet of Lula\u2019s intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to return Marina Silva<\/a> to lead the country\u2019s environmental ministry. Silva formerly held the job between 2003 and 2008, a period when deforestation declined by 53%. A former rubber-tapper from Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she deemed to be too lenient.<\/p>\n

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President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, right, and congressional candidate Marina Silva, campaign in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP Photo\/Andre Penner, file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Silva strikes a strong contrast with Bolsonaro\u2019s first environment minister, Ricardo Salles, who had never set foot in the Amazon when he took office in 2019 and resigned two years later following allegations that he had facilitated the export of illegally felled timber.<\/p>\n

Other measures Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Signing a decree that would rejuvenate the most significant international effort to preserve the rainforest \u2014 the Amazon Fund. The fund, which Bolsonaro had gutted, has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for sustainable development of the Amazon.<\/p>\n

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\u2014 Revoking a Bolsonaro decree that allowed mining in Indigenous and environmental protection areas.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which will oversee everything from land boundaries to education. This ministry will be led by S\u00f4nia Guajajara<\/a>, the country\u2019s first Indigenous woman in such a high government post.<\/p>\n

Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara from the Guajajara ethnic group poses for a photo during a protest against Violence, illegal logging, mining and ranching, and to demand government protection for their reserves, one day before the celebration of “Amazon Day”, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. (AP Photo\/Andre Penner, file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t be easy to overcome 504 years in only four years. But we are willing to use this moment to promote a take-back of Brazil\u2019s spiritual force,\u201d Guajajara said during her induction ceremony, which was delayed by the damage pro-Bolsonaro rioters caused to the presidential palace.<\/p>\n

The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro viewed management of the Amazon as an internal affair, causing Brazil\u2019s global reputation to take a hit. Lula is trying to undo that damage.<\/p>\n

During the UN\u2019s climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country\u2019s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. Brazil had been scheduled to host the event in 2019, but Bolsonaro canceled it in 2018 right after he was elected.<\/p>\n

While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex hurdles. For example, getting cooperation from local officials won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n

Six out of nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro allies. Those include Rondonia, where settlers of European descent control local power and have dismantled environmental legislation through the state assembly; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunities is driving rubber-tappers who had long fought to preserve the rainforest to take up cattle grazing instead.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining<\/a>, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries, such as Peru and Venezuela. The illegal mining causes mercury contamination of rivers that Indigenous peoples rely upon for fishing and drinking.<\/p>\n

An area of forest on fire near a logging area in the Transamazonica highway region, in the municipality of Humaita, Amazonas state, Brazil, Sept. 17, 2022. In a victory speech Sunday, Oct. 30, Brazil’s president-elect Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva promised to reverse a surge in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. (AP Photo\/Edmar Barros, file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIts main cause is the state\u2019s absence,\u201d says Gustavo Geiser, a forensics expert with the Federal Police who has worked in the Amazon for over 15 years.<\/p>\n

One area where Lula has more control is in designating Indigenous territories, which are the best preserved regions in the Amazon.<\/p>\n

Lula is under pressure to create 13 new Indigenous territories \u2014 a process that had stalled under Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to grant \u201cone more inch\u201d of land to Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

A major step will be to expand the size of Uneiuxi, part of one of the most remote and culturally diverse regions of the world that is home to 23 peoples. The process of expanding the boundaries of Uneiuxi started four decades ago, and the only remaining step is a presidential signature, which will increase its size by 37% to 551,000 hectares (2,100 square miles).<\/p>\n

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stands next to Indigenous leader Cacique Raoni at the Planalto Palace after he was sworn in as new president in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 1, 2023. (AP Photo\/Eraldo Peres, file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cLula already indicated that he would not have any problem doing that,\u201d said Kleber Karipuna, a close aide of Guajajara.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil\u2019s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency\u2019s headquarters \u2014 even its coffee room \u2014 as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing. The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil\u2019s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/01\/60e9e34596fe4deeac71ff25bb13f9ea.jpg?strip=1","fifu_image_alt":"Brazil’s New President Works to Reverse Amazon Deforestation","footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8027,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026\/revisions\/8027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}