Episode description

Brazil’s newly-elected president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has pledged to protect the Amazon and to reach zero deforestation by 2030.

During a recent meeting with US President Biden, Lula said the rainforest had been "invaded" under the previous administration. His predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, relaxed environmental protections, encouraging mining and logging in the Amazon that he said would help economic development.

Voters will now be waiting to see if they can trust Lula to follow through on the promises he has made so far for the Amazon. But Lula faces huge challenges: The Brazilian Congress elected in the October polls is still largely dominated by conservatives, with Bolsonaro’s PL the largest party in the lower house. Lula’s government will also have to contend with widespread violent crime and illegal mining and logging taking place across the region, even in the protected territories of indigenous communities. The Amazon has been under increasing pressure recently with Brazil setting a new deforestation record last year for the amount of trees cut down in the rainforest in one month.

So what needs to happen to save the Amazon? Can preservation and economic development go hand in hand? How important is the conservation of the rainforest for the rest of the world? And will Lula live up to his promise to end deforestation by the end of the decade?

Chris Morris is joined by:

Carlos Nobre is a climatologist who is chair of the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change. He's also a senior researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Federal University of São Paulo

Christian Lohbauer is a political scientist and founder of the political party - Partido Novo (NOVO)

Richard Lapper is the former Latin America editor for the Financial Times and the author of Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro published in 2021

Also featuring:

Ricardo Salles, Minister of the Environment from 2019 to 2021, under Jair Bolsonaro

Photo: A member of the Xikrin indigenous group fighting deforestation in the Amazon, Para, 20 September 2019. Credit: European Photopress Agency