The re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the eve of the Cop27 climate summit is a signal of hope for Amazonia and the planet (Editorial, 31 October). The Guardian was among the first to raise the alarm at the impact of road-building by the Brazilian dictatorship that cut through the forest, publishing a long article of mine in the early 1970s, which I followed up later in my 1978 book Assault on the Amazon. Since then, there has been remorseless, bit-by-bit felling and burning of life-sustaining trees, exacerbated in recent years by Jair Bolsonaro.
But no one should underrate the challenge facing Lula, an older man coming into office next January in less auspicious circumstances than in 2003. He faces a divided country, a hostile congress and many state governors who support both Bolsonaro and his reactionary policies.
Ranching, mining and international interests, often complicit with local smallholders and gold panners, add up to a tough coalition. Ibama, Brazil’s environmental regulator, and Funai, the government agency that is supposed to protect the country’s Indigenous peoples, have both been stripped of authority and funding.
Brazil under Lula will deserve international support, and will hopefully be a good international citizen once more, in the collective struggle to prevent humanity’s environmental suicide.
In his earlier terms, he showed the wrongness of the apocryphal De Gaulle remark that Brazil is “not a serious country”, lifting millions out of poverty, respecting the country’s African heritage, and helping found the G20 and the Brics grouping of countries. While he will inevitably disappoint some dreams, this is still a moment to savour and celebrate.
Richard Bourne
London
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