CEO Note: What Lula’s Reelection means for Nature
By Glenn Hurowitz, Founder & CEO
We awoke to some thrilling good news this morning, as Brazil’s presidential election concluded with the surprise reelection of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, defeating the son of former president Bolsonaro and turning back the anti-environment, right-wing politics that seemed ascendant after the first round of voting just a few weeks earlier.
So: Hurrah for the Amazon, the Cerrado, Pantanal and all Brazil’s nature! Lula’s reelection is a much-needed relief for the rainforest and the country’s other extraordinary ecosystems.
Some thoughts on what this momentous result means for Nature:
1) It’s a mega-opportunity to permanently break the link between agricultural expansion and deforestation.
Just prior to the election, Brazil clocked the lowest levels of deforestation on record in both the Amazon and Cerrado ecosystems.
A big reason was the Lula administration supporting environmental law enforcement and protection of Indigenous territories. Now, although the government faces a hostile Congress, it can enforce the law and designate new parks and Indigenous reserves – locking in progress.
2) Lula’s win creates the conditions for continued private sector action for Nature.
Brazilian law requires landholders to protect 80 percent of their land in the Amazon, but just 20-35 percent in the Cerrado and Pantanal. Government can’t do it alone: just because destruction of nature is legal, that doesn’t make it less damaging.
Mighty Earth campaigns recently drove supermarkets and meat companies to suspend almost 1,000 suppliers engaged in deforestation or land-grabbing, and we’ve worked with allies to spur most animal feed traders to ban destruction of nature throughout their supply chains. Together, these actions have sent a powerful signal across the agricultural frontier that destruction of nature can lead to almost immediate loss of market access, and incentivized a focus instead on developing Brazil’s 100 million acres plus of degraded land.
Of course, private sector action is smoothed when government is supportive. Lula’s election affords more years to embed conservation in business to such an extent that it can endure even a future hostile administration.
3) Lula’s election gives Indigenous communities the space to continue their decades-long project of building their own ability to protect their lands.
They’re using satellites and rangers to guard their territories. New designations of reserves and parks will help too. But too many defenders are killed every year, and the meat sold by the killers still finds its way onto supermarket shelves. The Lula government’s support will at least allow communities the scope to build their defenses for the long run.
4) There are still major threats to nature, such as the BR-319 highway project.
It’s important to remember that no politician is perfect! Lula’s administration has planned to invest in upgrading and paving the BR-319 highway that cuts through the Amazon. These sorts of infrastructure projects expand the frontiers of deforestation into new areas. So even though he has promised a strong environmental protection plan if construction moves forward, civil society and Indigenous Peoples have serious concerns about the project. But the Lula administration is still more likely to listen to these concerns than a Bolsonaro administration would have been.
5) Lula’s election can help make trees worth more alive than dead.
Under Lula, the Brazilian government launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, an elegant nature finance system where investors reward countries for conservation, but which needs more capital. Lula’s election shows that one of the world’s leading rainforest countries is still ready. Just today, the Netherlands has pledged up to $500 million in investment in the TFFF, bringing total pledges to $7.8 billion.
The election renews faith that pro-Nature leaders can win.
Nature faces huge political challenges in most countries amidst the rise of anti-environment populists on the right and center-left governments that are navigating wars and anti-democratic pressure in panicky ways. But Brazil’s election shows us champions of nature can still win, for the benefit of all their creatures and their people.
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