Opinion: Saving Amazon Lula’s toughest task

By silently cooperating in the destruction of more than 33,000 sqkm of Amazon rainforest during his reign, Jair Bolsonaro has left it almost near the ‘tipping point’

By Amitava Mukherjee

Of the many crucial tasks that Lula De Silva, the newly elected Brazilian President faces, saving the Amazon forest should top the list. He is also aware of the importance of the Amazon forest for the survival of humanity. He has also pledged surveillance of the entire Amazon forest and stop its deforestation.

But what is really the state of affairs at the Amazon rainforest which covers 5.5 million square kilometre of areas spanning different countries of Latin America. It constitutes half of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest. Sixty per cent of this rainforest is in Brazil where rampant deforestation was carried on under state patronage during the reign of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of the country. The Amazon rainforest is 10 million years old and home to 390 billion trees. This forest stores up to 120 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to almost 12 years of global emissions at current rates.

Bolsonaro ‘Legacy’

If deforestation is allowed to continue then much of it will go into the atmosphere making global warming nearly uncontrollable. Nearly 300 tribes still live in the forest areas of Brazil whose livelihood is also under threat due to deforestation.

Bolsonaro came to power in 2019 riding on the crest of a countrywide recession and government corruption scandals. His electioneering promise was to turn the Amazon forest into Brazil’s “economic soul” and open up the pristine forest to agribusiness giants, mining corporations and developers. He practically started a ‘jihad’ against indigenous tribes who enjoyed certain traditional rights which go a long way towards the preservation of the forest. Bolsonaro had declared that not a square cm of land in the Amazon will be designated for the tribals.

Bolsonaro did not stop there. IBAMA, the enforcement wing of the Brazilian ministry of environment, became his target of attack. He frequently intervened to block the agency’s operations against the felling of logs, fired 21 of the agency’s 27 state heads and created a new body to bypass the IBAMA. While Lula’s first term as President witnessed an 80% reduction in deforestation of the Amazon, the first eight months of Bolsonaro’s rule in 2019 resulted in 92% increase in deforestation over the corresponding period of 2018. This was the calculation made by INPE, Brazil’s space agency. For defending this data, the head of the INPE was sacked by Bolsonaro.

Commercial Cultivation

But the road ahead for Lula will not be easy to negotiate. He will have to strike a balance because the denuded parts of the Amazon – 19.8% of the rainforest in Brazil, mostly in the south and east is already gone – have given a fillip to the Brazilian economy by way of commercial cultivation and ranching. Brazil is now a big supplier of animal protein to a large part of the world mostly the Afro-Asian countries, the most notable among them being China.

A report by the ‘Time’ magazine calculates that although 427 species of mammals live in the Amazon forest nowadays, the most numerous of them are the cows which are reared on the denuded lands –80% of them being devoted to ranching –, slaughtered and then exported. The same report informs that in 2018 alone Brazil earned $6 billion by exporting beef. Even the small timers in the business now find it lucrative to clear most of their lands and rear cattle although under prevailing environmental laws, they are required to keep 80% of their lands under forest cover.

Agribusiness Lobbies

In his declared endeavour to stop the denudation of the Amazon in Brazil Lula da Silva may have to come in confrontation with agribusiness lobbies. And here lies the greatest challenge before him. The agribusiness lobby will leave no stone unturned to integrate the Amazon into the world food supply chain, particularly soya and meat. About 80% of soya grown all over the world is used to feed livestock, particularly meat chicken. Europe, particularly Britain, carries out intense cultivation of chickens and each year only Britain slaughters one billion such hapless birds. Britain’s annual import of soya to feed its chickens amounts to 3.5 million tonnes and according to Unearthed, an investigative journalism portal, about a quarter of it comes from Brazil. Needless to say, they are cultivated on denuded Amazon soils.

According to Progressive International (PI), a left-wing international activist organisation, lots of big names in the arena of transnational banks and investment funds are coming up who may be indirectly financing the agribusiness companies which are in turn contributing to the destruction of the Brazilian Amazon forest. Most of these big names are from the Global North. Not to be left behind Brazilian banks, both state-controlled and private investment funds are also financing such companies which are clearing the rainforest for their business purpose.

So Lula Da Silva has a big task in hand. By silently witnessing and cooperating in the destruction of more than 33,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest during his reign, Bolsonaro has left it almost near the ‘tipping point’, a spectre when the forest will no longer suck groundwater and throw it into the atmosphere for creating clouds and bringing in rainfall thereby slowly reducing the great forest into savanna-type lands