Lula da Silva during the speech announcing the measures to curb deforestation this Monday in Brasilia. Gustavo Moreno (AP)
End deforestation in 2030. This is the goal set by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he took office, and achieving it will not be an easy task. To achieve this, the government now has a concrete plan against deforestation in the Amazon region, which will be presented symbolically on World Environment Day. This is a repeat of a plan launched by Lula and his environment minister, Marina Silva, in their first term in 2004, which has had very good results. Since it came into force and up to 2012, deforestation has decreased by 83%. Later, the destruction gradually picked up again, skyrocketing under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, who scrapped the plan and replaced it with targeted military operations to fight fires and illegal logging, which experts saw as underutilized land.
The implementation of the plan, which was drawn up over a period of four months with the participation of 19 ministries, aims to achieve zero deforestation within seven years and includes 194 lines of action. Among other things, the creation of three million hectares of new nature reserves and the protection of 230,000 kilometers of riverbanks deserve special mention. The government also plans to confiscate 50% of illegally logged land, increase the number of strategic bases, police stations, and planes for federal police and armed forces in the Amazon, issue daily deforestation alerts, and hire 1,600 environmental analysts by 2027. President Lula also pledged that he would make “due corrections” to Brazil’s contribution to the Paris Agreement on climate change as commitments have been revised downwards in recent years.
The program is not only based on the suppression of environmental crimes, but also seeks to provide an economic alternative for the millions of Brazilians living in the Amazon, promoting bioeconomy, sustainable tourism and family farming, the Environment Minister plans. “Putting socio-environmental protection and climate change at the heart of government activities and priorities goes beyond an ethical and civilizational obligation. It is also the greatest triumph that Brazil has to establish itself in the world, attract investments, create jobs and become again the protagonist in resolving the major global conflicts,” he said.
Despite her convictions, many Brazilian politicians do not think like her. Last week, the Chamber of Deputies voted by a conservative majority to limit the demarcation of tribal lands, managed to strip powers from her ministry and that of tribal peoples, and relaxed rules to protect the Atlantic Forest, a tropical forest biome that is even more threatened than the Amazon. At the anti-deforestation plan presentation ceremony, Lula announced his veto of the articles of this law that endanger the future of the forest, but the ministry’s dehydration remains unchanged. In any case, the pompous presentation ceremony of the anti-deforestation plan was an act of reparation and a strengthening of its minister with the highest international reputation at a time of intense pressure.
The ecologists received the government’s proposals with a mixture of optimism and caution, mainly because they knew that the parliamentarians will be a stone in the shoe. “There is no point in making a nice plan on paper and having Congress pass a law amnesting land trespassers,” said Márcio Astrini, secretary-general of the organizing coalition Climate Observatory, referring to some of the threats currently looming. In addition to working on the ground to conserve the forest, the government must also work hard in the corridors of Brasilia to convince opponents, allies and the powerful agricultural lobby. Politically, the plan should bear fruit before 2025, when Brazil hosts the COP-30 in the city of Belém, an international event that Lula hopes to capitalize on any efforts in favor of green diplomacy.
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