Among the promises and priorities of the new Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, care for the environment seems to occupy a prominent place. The president has promised to eliminate all deforestation by 2030, in a marked turn in the country, after four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s government.
But few challenges will be greater for him than delivering on that promise.
To understand why, consider the very different visions of three daughters of a family of rubber-collectors who collect latex who live on a large reservation in the western state of Acre. The reserve is a protected forest named after legendary rubber-gatherer leader and conservationist Chico Mendes.
Luzineide da Silva is a third generation rubber tapper. One of his daughters wants to follow in his footsteps and make a living off the family fields, rubber trees and Brazil nuts. The other two want to cut down the forest, plant grass and raise livestock.
“My eldest daughter was amazed when she took part in a cattle training class. She learned how to make meat and cheese and even drive a tractor. It changed her view of the world,” said Da Silva at the end of a day tending to his crops of corn, squash, watermelon, banana and cucumber under a blazing sun.
“He said, ‘Mom, everyone who raises cattle has a car, a good life, and goes to private colleges, while I can’t afford veterinary school,'” her mother recalled.
It’s the same with other families. Over the past two decades, many rubber collectors have gradually abandoned the vision of Mendes, who staunchly opposed deforestation at the hands of large ranchers.
The forest defender was shot and killed in his small house in the town of Xapuri here in Acre in December 1998. A local farmer had had him killed. International outrage after the event led to the creation of extractive reserves in the Amazon, a kind of federal conservation unit where forest communities could live their traditional lives protected from land grabbing.
Classical latex extraction is done by making furrows in the bark of rubber trees and collecting the latex that comes out. But that handmade rubber fell off descent for decades a victim of synthetic rubber produced in chemical factories or rubber trees grown on plantations.
Because there are few opportunities elsewhere, many locals they cut down trees and resorted to raising cattle as a more reliable income compared to seasonal forest products, such as Brazil nuts. Livestock became the most important economic activity in Acre.
Jair Bolsonaro’s legacy
Over the past four years, this trend of converting forests to grasslands has reached unprecedented levels under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.
His government has sought to reduce protected areas and legalize large-scale cattle ranching within the extractive reserves. Land thieves from the neighboring state of Rondonia have bought land illegally, including on public lands. One of them cleared 104 hectares, the largest swath of destruction this yearaccording to environmental officials who testified anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
Residents have also been cutting down trees to lease the land to nearby ranchers, who are funding the destruction. Others post ads on Facebook offering their traditional rubber orchards for sale.
“What strikes me is that when we had nothing, we were able to rally people and fight like we did,” recalled Raimundo Mendes de Barros from a chair on the terrace of his wooden house, whose walls display pictures of him along with Chico Mendes, who was his cousin, and Lula.
They all belong to the same party, the Workers’ Party, as the new president. Thanks to the rubber-pickers movement, he said, people now have roads and electricity, and walk on par with city dwellers.
But these improvements ended up benefiting the villains, Raimundo Mendes added. “Many think that the products of forest and family farming are worthless and that they need money to buy a motorcycle and a mobile phone. They will sell a piece of their rubber orchard and clear the forest to raise livestock,” he said.
“We fought so hard and built a lot of good stuff, but people don’t care,” added the 77-year-old leader of the rubber tappers.
The result is that an area the size of Manhattan was destroyed during Bolsonaro’s presidency between 2019 and 2022. That’s triple the number in the previous four years, according to an analysis by the Instituto Socioambiental, a Brazilian non-profit organization, based on official data.
“In the past, the residents of the Chico Mendes reserve used the profits from rubber and Brazil nuts to buy livestock, as a sort of savings account,” he explained to Antonio Oviedo, a researcher at the institute. Associated press. He indicated that this is now happening on a much larger scale.
However, most locals don’t see this forest loss as a problem, quite the contrary. In the recent elections, Bolsonaro defeated Lula by a wide margin here in Xapuri and in the six municipalities of the Chico Mendes reservation.
Other parts of Acre state have also reached all-time highs for deforestation in the past four years, according to official tracking.
However, Bolsonaro beat Lula 70% to 30%. His ally, pro-agribusiness Governor Gladson Cameli, was also overwhelmingly re-elected. This brought to light the long years of decline of the PT’s efforts to implement a sustainable economy in Acre.
And it is also an indicator of the strength of agricultural enterprises and cultural changes in recent years in rural Brazil.
The new minister
Acre is also the home of Marina Silva, the new government’s environment minister, who held the same position in Lula’s previous term.
The minister is also a former rubber collector who fought deforestation alongside Mendes. A globally recognized advocate for forests, she has become wildly unpopular in her home state. Her political party, the Sustainability Network, is almost non-existent here; she doesn’t even have an elected councilor.
Angela Mendes, the daughter of Chico Mendes, says that to really stop deforestation, Lula’s government will have to listen to the needs of small farmers who live on forest products such as rubber, Brazil nuts and açaí, and reform the federal agency that deals with the management of protected areas: the Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity.
“We still have a lot of forests standing,” he said in an interview with Xapuri. For it to remain so, she added, it is essential to find a way for those who live on the earth. This is the only way forward.
Fountain: Associated press
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Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.