Even a Lula Victory May Not Restore Brazil’s Forests
The presidential hopeful has proved that deforestation can be prevented in the Amazon, but only at the expense of declaring open season elsewhere.
A deforested and burnt area on the edge of the BR-230 (Transamazonica) highway in Manicoré, Amazonas state, Brazil.
Photographer: Michael Dantas/AFP/Getty Images
To hear many people talk, the fate of the planet hangs in the balance depending on the outcome of the second-round vote in Brazil’s election. On one side is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leftist who all but halted the logging of the Amazon in his term as president from 2003 to 2010. On the other is Jair Bolsonaro, the Trumpy right-winger who razed the rainforest and pushed deforestation last year to nearly double its levels during his first year in office.
A sharp left-right dichotomy is a common way to think about the stakes in the runoff poll on Oct. 30. Still, as with the candidates’ economic platforms, their forest policies have a lot more in common than you might expect.