How Brazil's Bolsonaro threatens the planet

This calendar has sounded the alarm inside and outside Brazil. In last-minute television commercials, Haddad tied his highly favored opponent to the dark history of abuse and torture suffered by the country's former military leaders. The Economist, a publication known for its center-right politics, has been so disturbed by the "real threat" that Bolsonaro is weighing on Brazilian democracy that she has endorsed a Latin American left.

But as experts and experts tackle a new blow to liberal democracy in the West, others see a greater risk behind Bolsonaro's program: the candidate's potential war against the environment.

In his speeches, Bolsonaro said that, like President Trump, he would withdraw his country from the Paris climate agreements. With the support of the powerful agribusiness lobby, Bolsonaro protested against the country's "excessive" control over its rural areas and forests. He raised the idea of ​​bringing together the country's agriculture and environment ministries, which critics say could weaken environmental protection. And it has long supported the opening of indigenous areas, currently protected by the government, to agricultural and commercial use.

Ecologists fear that a Bolsonaro presidency is announcing the closure of the Amazon season for illegal loggers, miners and rogue farmers in Brazil, home to 60% of the world's largest rainforest. " noted the Financial Times.

"I think we are heading towards a very dark period in the history of Brazil," said Paulo Artaxo, a researcher on climate change at the University of Sao Paulo, Science magazine. "There is no point in flirting with it. Bolsonaro is the worst thing that can happen for the environment. "

Until now, Brazil has been a leader in the fight against climate change. It hosted the pioneering Earth Summit in 1992, when world leaders gathered for the first time to sign a climate change convention sponsored by the United States. From the mid-2000s, his leftist government worked hard to stop deforestation in the Amazon Basin, the proverbial lung of the world. Brazil is committed to eliminating illegal deforestation by the end of the next decade and significantly reducing its carbon emissions. Its ratification of the Paris Agreement in September 2016 was considered at the time as a huge victory for international climate activists. And it is expected to host the next round of climate policy negotiations led by the United States in November 2019.

But the data shows that deforestation has resumed in recent years. Global demand for Brazilian beef and soybeans, two of the country's major export products, has led to a further expansion of agricultural land in forested areas. With Bolsonaro at the helm, it is assumed that the situation will only get worse.

"The increase in deforestation will be immediate," said Edson Duarte, the country's environment minister, in a recent interview with the Sao Paolo newspaper. "I'm afraid of a gold rush to see who arrives first. They will know that if they occupy illegally, the authorities will be complacent and will grant concordance. They will be sure that nobody will disturb them. "

Duarte underscored the hypocrisy of Bolsonaro, who made the fight against crime an essential part of his election campaign, promising to weaken the government's ability to protect Brazil's forests. "It's the same as saying he's going to pull the police off the street," Duarte said.

For members of Brazil's indigenous communities in the Amazon, a Bolsonaro presidency is synonymous with disaster on several fronts. "If it wins, it will institutionalize the genocide," said Dinamam Tuxá, national coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, in an interview with Fabiano Maisonnave of Climate Home News. "He has already stated that the federal government will no longer defend the rights of indigenous peoples, such as access to land. We are very scared. I fear for my own life. "