Lula’s government fights to stop deforestation in Brazil

Preliminary data finds that deforestation in the month of March increased by 14 percent over the same month last year.

Deforestation in Brazil has continued to rise, underscoring the difficulties facing leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as he tries to halt deforestation. what arose under his predecessor.

Preliminary data released Friday shows the government has yet to deliver on that promise, with deforestation for the month of March up 14 percent compared to the same month last year.

“This increase in figures reveals that the Amazon still suffers from a great lack of governance and that the new government needs to act urgently to rebuild its capacity to repress environmental crimes, which had been totally destroyed by the last government”, Marcio Astrini , head of the local environmental group Observatorio del Clima, told the Reuters news agency.

During the tenure of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, experts warned that increasing deforestation was jeopardizing efforts to address the climate crisis and indigenous communities that they met managed by powerful business interests delving into the rainforest, often with the implicit support of Bolsonaro’s right-wing government.

Lula, who took office on January 1, had vowed to crack down on deforestation and protect Indigenous villages of the illegal companies that drive their rise.

“I am here to tell everyone that Brazil is back in the world”, Lula told a crowd at the COP27 climate conference in November 2022. “You all know that we are going to wage a great fight against deforestation.”

Satellite images from INPE’s national space investigations, however, show that 356 square kilometers (137 square miles) were cleared in the month of March. From January to March, deforestation dropped by 11 percent compared to the previous year.

He mixed results He underscored the challenges that remain after several years of lax enforcement and unofficial support for many of the illegal business activities that contribute to deforestation, seen by Bolsonaro as a form of economic development.

“The figures show that there is a complex scenario given the weakening of control in the region and the discourse of recent years that favored illegality,” said Mariana Napolitano, conservation manager of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Brazil, said to the AFP news agency.

“Although the current government has shown its intention to seriously combat deforestation, it will take time to change the scenario.”