On the first day of the new year, the world watched as tens of thousands of people flooded Brazil’s capital of Brasília to attend the inauguration ceremony of president Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva.

The historic event saw the veteran leftist officially take over from his predecessor, far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro, whose divisive environmental policies received much flak over the four years he was in power.

Bolsonaro was a keen apologist for the rapid and intensive exploitation of some of Brazil’s most important and vulnerable regions, including the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado.

Lula’s new approach provides a stark contrast to his predecessor’s: upon being sworn in, one of his first moves as president included appointing Amazon activist Marina Silva as environment and climate change minister. Silva was Lula’s own environment minister during his first presidency term back in 2003-2010, and was widely credited with decreasing deforestation levels at the time.

Indeed, much of his presidential campaign centred around completely erasing illegal deforestation in the Amazon, whilst protecting the rights of its Indigenous groups.

He also promised to promote technological solutions to increase agricultural productivity without any further deforestation, whilst delivering economic growth and trade for Brazil.

This is also one of the main battles Lula faces: to convince the country’s agricultural sector that growth is possible whilst adhering to stricter environmental legislation.

It will be a hard argument to make, considering Bolsonaro’s controversial closeness with agribusinesses seemed to cultivate a thriving trade. In 2020, Brazil was the world’s biggest exporter of soybeans ($28.6bn), raw sugar ($8.95bn), frozen bovine meat ($6.69bn) and poultry meat ($5.59bn), OEC data shows.

At the same time, there are clear indications Lula’s strategy is not just environmentally friendly, but commercially necessary. Environmental campaigners have warned the new Brazilian government needs to act urgently on the Amazon and the Cerrado to protect relations with vital trade partners. 

At least three of Brazil’s key import regions – the UK, the EU, and the US – will roll out new laws over the next two years that will require businesses trading commodities such as soy and cattle to conduct strict due diligence procedures across their entire supply chains. Crucially, they will want to make sure goods are not linked to illegal deforestation. So the South American nation will undoubtedly have to ramp up efforts if it wants to continue doing business with some of its leading importers.

“Businesses in large consumer markets, including the UK, will need to have confidence that the new Brazilian government is seriously tackling illegality and lack of traceability for them to continue to source from certain areas in Brazil,” points out Rubens Carvalho, head of deforestation research at non-profit Earthsight.

For him, importing countries should be held equally accountable for environmental impact. “Empty words are not enough. Beyond what the new Brazilian government must do, there’s a very clear role for UK businesses to play.

“Only with serious efforts and workable and consistently enforced legislation in both Brazil and importing countries will we see positive impacts in reducing Brazilian deforestation.”

Still, the WWF believes Lula’s stance is a step in the right direction. “While there is still a long way to go before the Amazon, Cerrado and other key Brazilian habitats are safe, we are seeing exciting commitments from this government,” says Bel Lyon, WWF UK senior programme advisor, Latin America.

Whether those commitments will come to fruition quickly enough to both reverse some of the environmental damage caused by previous administrations, and appease the international markets, remains to be seen. One thing is for certain: Lula da Silva has a daunting task ahead of him.

Topics