Lula beat President Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election Sunday. Can he save the iconic Amazon forest?
Brazil, the largest nation in South America and home of the iconic Amazon rainforest, will have a new leader come January 1: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In the runoff election Sunday, Lula, as he’s widely known, beat incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, earning just over 50 percent of the vote.
It was a historic defeat and a sensational comeback for Lula. After serving two terms as Brazil’s president, between 2003 and 2011, Lula went to jail for corruption, though he was later freed after the Supreme Court overturned his convictions. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, is the first president to lose reelection in the 34 years of the nation’s modern democracy. (He has yet to concede.)
The results also represent a historic moment for the Amazon rainforest.
Under President Bolsonaro, deforestation accelerated, threatening not only wildlife and Indigenous communities but also the global climate. But Lula has promised to give the forest a second chance. “Let’s fight for zero deforestation,” Lula said Sunday night after his victory. “Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all our biomes, especially the Amazon forest.”
Lula often points to his track record to prove he can succeed: During his presidency, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by more than 80 percent, meaning there was less forest loss. An analysis by the climate website Carbon Brief suggests that under Lula’s next administration, annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon could be down by nearly 90 percent by the end of the decade.
“Everything that Lula has said, and even his track record, would indicate that he’s going to undo the brutal regressions of the Bolsonaro regime,” Christian Poirier, program director at the nonprofit advocacy group Amazon Watch, told Vox in September.
Few political issues have higher global stakes than the conservation of the Amazon. Felling the rainforest not only erodes a critical carbon sink, which helps suck planet-warming gases out of the atmosphere, but also fuels climate change. Ongoing deforestation could also trigger a runaway reaction that may turn regions of the rainforest into a savanna-like ecosystem, stripping the forest of its many ecological benefits and natural wonders.
