Lula Unveils Plan to Halt Deforestation of Amazon by 2030

Leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday unveiled his administration's plan to halt deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2030.

"I'm committed to resuming Brazil's global leadership in mitigating climate change and controlling deforestation," Lula said in a speech marking the launch of the plan. "Brazil will once again become a global reference in sustainability."

The Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAm) establishes "a coordinated policy across more than a dozen ministries through the end of Lula's term in 2027," Reuters reported. The roadmap, whose full implementation would depend on Lula's reelection or the cooperation of his successor, "calls for boosted use of intelligence and satellite imagery to track criminal activity, regularization of land titles, and use of a rural registry to monitor correct management of forests considered vital for slowing global climate change."

According to Reuters:

Degraded forests will be recovered and native vegetation increased through economic incentives for conservation and sustainable forest management, the plan says.

Among the actions to be taken, authorities will cross-check information from the financial system with the rural registry and other databases and satellite images to root out illegal loggers and cattle ranching.

Financial intelligence can, for example, point to cash movements to pay for equipment such as chainsaws for logging or excavators for illegal wildcat gold mining.

Lula previously vowed to make the destruction of the world's largest tropical rainforest "a thing of the past" in a November speech at the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt—his first on the international stage after defeating Brazil's far-right former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula's late-October victory over Bolsonaro was hailed as an important step toward rescuing the critical ecosystem from more severe and potentially irreversible damage. Although Bolsonaro signed a 2021 pact alongside the leaders of more than 140 other countries to eliminate deforestation worldwide by 2030, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had surged by 75% over the previous decade by the end of his four-year reign.

Parts of the Amazon, often called the "lungs of the Earth" because of its unmatched ability to provide oxygen and absorb planet-heating carbon dioxide, recently passed a key tipping point due to the intensification of clearcutting under Bolsonaro. The ex-president's reactionary policies drove deforestation in Brazil to a 15-year high in 2021, which helped push the country's greenhouse gas emissions to their highest level in nearly two decades.

Most of the deforestation that happened on Bolsonaro's watch was illegal, propelled by logging, mining, and agribusiness companies that received a green light from the ex-president and frequently used violence to repress Indigenous forest dwellers and other environmental advocates. Not only has the growing industrialization of the Amazon worsened hunger, disease, and infant mortality among Indigenous peoples, but a former federal police official warned last week that "the rapid advance of organized crime groups... risks turning the region into a vast, conflict-stricken hinterland plagued by heavily armed 'criminal insurgents,'" The Guardian reported.

Monday's event was held on the one-year anniversary of the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous affairs specialist Bruno Pereira. Brazilian police recently charged several people, including the alleged leader of a "transnational criminal organization," in connection with the killings.

During his COP27 speech last year, Lula made clear that "there's no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon," roughly 60% of which is located in Brazil.

"The crimes that happened [under Bolsonaro] will now be combated," said Lula, a Workers' Party member who previously served as Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010 and took office again on January 1. "We will rebuild our enforcement capabilities and monitoring systems that were dismantled during the past four years."

"We will fight hard against illegal deforestation. We will take care of Indigenous people," added Lula, who drastically reduced both deforestation and inequality when he governed the country earlier this century. "Brazil is emerging from the cocoon to which it has been subjected for the last four years."

Lula has already taken several steps toward fulfilling his pledge to end deforestation by 2030, and they appear to be paying off. Preliminary government data published last month showed that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon decreased by 68% this April compared with last year.

There's "still a lot more to do," Friends of the Earth campaigner and author Guy Shrubsole tweeted in response to the findings, "but this is the impact of electing an environmentalist like Lula over a right-wing populist like Bolsonaro."

In early May, Lula secured "an 80 million-pound ($100.97 million) contribution from Britain to the Amazon Fund, an initiative aimed at fighting deforestation also backed by Norway, Germany, and the United States," Reuters reported last month. In April, he "resumed the recognition of Indigenous lands, reversing a Bolsonaro policy, while announcing new job openings at the environment ministry and [the] Indigenous agency FUNAI."

Research has demonstrated that granting land tenure to Indigenous communities is associated with improved forest outcomes.

Lula has, as Reuters noted last month, "faced continued challenges since taking office as [the] environmental agency IBAMA grapples with lack of staff," one lingering consequence of his predecessor's funding cuts. But the president fully expected to face substantial opposition from corporate interests and right-wing Brazilian lawmakers.

The Associated Press reported Monday that the Lula administration's new deforestation blueprint—the fifth phase of the PPCDAm, a program created 20 years ago during the president's first term and suspended by Bolsonaro—is "a response to recent limitations Congress placed on [Marina] Silva, the environment minister, particularly influenced by the so-called beef caucus representing agribusiness interests."

The plan seeks to create "a tracing system for wood, livestock, and other agricultural products from the Amazon, at a time when importing countries are increasingly demanding proof that they are not from deforested lands," Reuters explained. "It also looks to develop a green economy to sustain the Amazon region without deforestation that will include the certification of forest products, technical assistance for producers, provision for infrastructure, energy and internet connection, and the encouragement of ecotourism."

While the Lula administration has previously expressed its desire to create a new federal police unit capable of deterring environmental crimes in Brazil, the president confirmed Monday that he intends to bolster law enforcement to combat illegal logging, mining, hunting, and fishing in Indigenous territories, ecologically protected zones, and the Amazon writ large. Researchers say such measures are necessary to preserve progress.

Despite scientists' warnings that it will be virtually impossible to avert the worst consequences of the climate and biodiversity crises unless the world stops felling trees to make space for cattle ranching, monocropping, and other destructive practices, global efforts to reverse deforestation by 2030 are currently behind schedule and significantly underfunded.

To prevent the entire Amazon from passing a point of no return, experts say an area twice the size of Germany must be reforested. Such an endeavor would cost several billion dollars—a tiny fraction of the $2.24 trillion the world's governments, led by the U.S., spent on their militaries in 2022.

"Mainly because of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil is largely responsible for the world's climate battles," Lula said Monday. "Stopping deforestation in the Amazon is also a way to reduce global warming. I'm aware of the scope of the challenge of ending deforestation by 2030, but this is a challenge we're determined to achieve."