Deforestation declines in Amazon under Lula

It is good news for environmentalists and climate change activists not just in Brazil, in Latin America but across the world. Amazon’s rainforest is the largest carbon container, which helps in combating rising global temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions. Ever since leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the presidential election in 2022, levels of deforestation had dropped significantly.

It fell by 50 per cent in the first year of his third presidential term. And according to official reports, it has dropped 38 per cent in the first half of 2026, the sharpest drop in a decade. Lula commented, “They don’t understand the work we are doing to bring deforestation down to zero by 2030.

This is not a decision by any COP (Conference of the Parties of United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change summit) or by the United Nations. It is a decision of our government.” Lula is however under attack by the environmentalists for expanding oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River.

Lula had reversed the aggressive deforestation that was under way in his predecessor, the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, who pushed for ‘sustainable development’ to push for greater deforestation. Surprisingly, the United States under President Donald Trump, who has been a great supporter of Bolsonaro, and who wanted the trial of Bolsonaro for trying to stall the 2022 verdict, had imposed, ironically enough, sanctions against Brazil for “illegal deforestation” along with unfair trade practices. The Lula government is countering the US with its figures for reduced deforestation.

The Lula-Bolsonaro fight over climate change, with Bolsonaro like any right-wing leader denying it, and leftist Lula wanting to take measures to curb carbon emissions, has been a familiar one. In the United States, Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden had taken measures to combat climate change while Trump is a staunch climate change denier. The exception is European Union (EU), where conservative centrists are one with socialists in wanting to take firm measures to combat climate change like adopting electric vehicles (EVs) and using more of renewable sources of energy like solar and wind and natural gas.

The EU members are in an advantageous position relatively speaking over many of the developing countries because of their advanced technology. Countries like Brazil and India on the other hand are forced to balance the demands of development and the imperatives of climate change. In many of the Asian countries, including India and China, climate change programmes are not affected by the political ideology of the ruling parties. There is the general recognition that reducing carbon emissions is one of the necessary measures to sustain development.

In Latin America, and especially in countries like Brazil, which face he challenge of a large segment of economically deprived population, pursuing climate change-friendly economic programmes is not an easy task. But Lula has shown that it is both possible and necessary to pursue policies like controlling deforestation to save global climate change assets like saving the Amazon forest. Saving the Amazon forest not only helps in curbing carbon emissions, but it also provides a safe haven for millions of the poor who depend on the rain forest for their livelihood. Of course, this would require a long-term vision, and leaders like Lula are willing to adopt it.

The challenge for the Lula government in Brazil is to sustain the reduction in deforestation levels. It is not sufficient to achieve record levels of reduction in deforestation in one presidential term, and lose it in the next one when a president of an opposite ideology comes into. Lula faces a presidential election in October, and the 80-year-old veteran leftist is preparing to fight it, even as former president Bolsonaro’s son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, will be challenging Lula.