How Lula can save the Amazon

How Lula can save the Amazon

Luiz Incio Lula da Silva has green cred. Joining the global climate summit in Egypt last November to the cry of “Brazil is back!,” the president-elect had no trouble convincing the world’s environmental intelligentsia that he could deliver on the promise to end deforestation in the Amazon by the end of the decade. He had gotten so close already. Forest-clearing in the Amazon declined by about 80% between 2004 and 2012, during his first two terms in the presidency and the first couple of years under his handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff. Deforestation went into overdrive over the last four years under President Jair Bolsonaro, who showed no interest in protecting the rainforest from logging, mining or agribusiness. But with another term in office, hoped the crowd in Egypt, Lula could turn Brazil around again. For all his good intentions and grand declarations, he may fall short. The tools deployed by the federal and state governments, from expanding protected areas to regularizing land tenure and improving satellite monitoring, were critical to discouraging farmers and cattle ranchers from cutting down the forest 15 years ago. But for Lula to save the Amazon over the next 10, he must also offer a viable