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By Associated press
SAO PAULO – Scientists warn that Brazil's elected president could move the Amazon rainforest beyond its critical threshold – with serious consequences for global climate and rainfall.
Jair Bolsonaro, who takes office on 1 January, is demanding a mandate to convert land to cattle and soybean pastures, calling for protection of the Brazilian rainforest as an economic barrier.
Brazil contains about 60% of the Amazon rainforest and scientists are worried.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Amazon rainforest for the living systems of the planet, said Carlos Nobre, a climatologist at the University of Sao Paulo.
Each tree stores the carbon absorbed by the atmosphere. The Amazon absorbs up to 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year and releases 20% of the planet's oxygen, which earned it the nickname "lung of the planet".
It's also a global time maker.
Expanding on 10 times the size of Texas, the Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world. Billions of trees suck water through the deep roots and bring it to their leaves, releasing water vapor that forms a thick fog on the forest canopy tropical.
This mist rises in clouds and eventually becomes precipitation – a cycle that shapes the seasons in South America and beyond.
According to one estimate, the Amazon generates 30 to 50% of its own rainfall.
Now, the integrity of the three functions – as a carbon sink, the lungs of the Earth and a rainmaker – is at stake.
On October 28, the Brazilians elected Bolsonaro, a far-right candidate who scandalized the corruption scandals of the former government and secured the support of agribusiness groups. His election was held weeks before an international summit in December, where leaders will discuss ways to tackle climate change.
During the election campaign, Bolsonaro pledged to relax the protection of areas of the Brazilian Amazon designated as indigenous lands and nature reserves, calling them impediments to economic growth. "All these reservations pose development problems," he told his supporters.
He also repeatedly spoke of the destruction of the power of the Ministry of the Environment to enforce existing green laws.
"If Bolsonaro keeps its campaign promises, deforestation in the Amazon will probably increase rapidly – and the effects will be felt all over the planet," said Paulo Artaxo, professor of environmental physics at the University of California. 39, University of Sao Paulo.
The Bolsonaro transition team did not respond to an interview request from the Associated Press.
Brazil has already been considered a global environmental success story. Between 2004 and 2014, stricter enforcement of laws to protect the rainforest – aided by regular satellite monitoring and the protection of lands designated as reserves – severely limited the rate of deforestation, which peaked in the early 1980s. 2000 to approximately 9,650 square miles (25,000 square kilometers).
After a political crisis that affected Brazil and led to the dismissal of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, the law enforcement measures have weakened. Pastoralists and farmers have begun to convert more tropical forests to pastures and cropland. Between 2014 and 2017, annual deforestation doubled to approximately 3,090 square miles (8,000 square kilometers). Most often, cut trees and bushes are simply burned, which releases carbon dioxide directly, Artaxo said.
"In the Brazilian Amazon, agriculture and livestock farming are by far the biggest source of deforestation," said Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida at Gainesville.
Now, observers are analyzing Bolsonaro's campaign statements and positioning themselves as a Congressman to anticipate the next step for the Amazon.
Bolsonaro – which some call "tropical trump" because of some similarities with US President Donald Trump – is a former captain of the army endowed with the talent to channel indignation and make headlines. A 27-year federal congressman, he has led legislative campaigns to unravel indigenous peoples' land protections and promote the agri-food sector. He also made derogatory comments about minorities, women and LGBT people.
Much of its support comes from business and agricultural interests.
"These farmers are not invaders, they are producers," said elected MP and Senator Luiz Carlos Heinze, a farmer and close ally of Bolsonaro. He accused the "left-wing administrations" of the past of promoting the rights of indigenous peoples at the expense of farmers and ranchers.
"Brazil will be the largest nation of farmers in the world during the Bolsonaro years," Heinze said.
Advocates of indigenous peoples' rights are concerned about the new direction indicated. "Bolsonaro has repeatedly said that the indigenous territories of the Amazon should be open to the mining and agri-food sector, which is very much in the opposite direction of our Constitution," said Adriana Ramos, public policy coordinator for the region. Social Environmental Institute of Brasilia, group.
In a post-election interview with Catholic television on November 1, Bolsonaro said: "We intend to protect the environment, but without creating difficulties for our progress".
Bolsonaro has repeatedly reiterated that Brazil should pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, a treaty that its predecessor had signed in 2016, committing to reduce carbon emissions by 37% over at the levels of 2005 to 2030. After the elections, it has declined publicly.
In the meantime, he has named Ernesto Araujo, climate change denier, to become the next foreign minister.
Nelson Ananias Filho, sustainability coordinator of the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock, who supported the Bolsonaro campaign, said: "The Brazilian agri-food industry will adapt to all the circumstances. "
Whether Brazil remains formally or not formally in the Paris Climate Agreement, the only way for the country to meet its emissions targets is to put a complete end to deforestation in Africa. 39, here 2030 and reduce agricultural emissions, said climatologist Nobre. "If Bolsonaro continues to move in the current direction, it is fundamentally impossible."
Deforestation is another danger.
In addition to the oceans, tropical forests are the most important regions of the world for the evacuation of water vapor into the air, which eventually turns into rain. "That's the reason we have rains in the American Midwest and in other interior regions – it's not just the Amazon, but also the largest rainforest wet, "said Bill Laurance, a tropical ecologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.
Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy, environmental scientist at George Mason University, estimated that the "critical point for the Amazon system" was 20 to 25 percent of deforestation.
Without enough trees to withstand rainfall, the longer, more pronounced dry season could turn more than half of the rainforest into a tropical savannah, they wrote in February in the journal Science Advances.
If the rain cycle collapses, winter droughts in parts of Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina could devastate agriculture, they wrote. The impacts could even be felt as far as in the US Midwest, Laurance said.
Bolsonaro's rhetoric about the potential dismantling of the Ministry of the Environment and the retreat of the rights of indigenous peoples worries Nobre, who said: "I am a scientist, but I am also a Brazilian citizen and a citizen of the planet".
Christina Larson, AP science and science writer, reported to Washington, D.C.
The Health and Science Department of the Associated Press receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Scientific Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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