RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Wielding a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of indigenous affairs recently went through every corner of the agency’s headquarters — even the cafeteria — as he invoked the help of ancestors during a purification ritual.
The ritual had extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s first indigenous woman to lead the agency tasked with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. After being sworn in next month under new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean up an agency that critics say has allowed the exploitation of the Amazon’s resources at the expense of the environment.
As the Wapichana performed the ritual, natives and government officials enthusiastically chanted “Yoohoo! Funai is ours!” — a reference to the agency you will lead.
Environmentalists, indigenous peoples and sympathetic voters were important to Lula’s narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is trying to fulfill campaign promises he made on a wide range of issues, from expanding indigenous territories to halting the rise of illegal logging.
To achieve these goals, Lula appoints well-known environmentalists and indigenous people to key positions at Funai and other agencies that Bolsonaro has staffed with agribusiness allies and military officials.
In Lula’s previous two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and indigenous issues. And he is sure to face obstacles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control areas of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the first steps right.
The federal officials Lula has already appointed to key positions “have the national and international prestige to reverse all the environmental destruction we have suffered during these four years of Bolsonaro’s rule,” said George Porto Ferreira, an analyst at Ibama , the legal environment in Brazil. – enforcement agency.
Bolsonaro’s supporters, meanwhile, fear that Lula’s pledge to increase environmental protection will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development and punish people for activities that were previously allowed. Backers with ties to agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical support to rioters who stormed Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court earlier this month.
When Bolsonaro was president, he promoted Funai and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This allowed deforestation to reach its highest level since 2006, as developers and miners who took land from indigenous people suffered few consequences.
Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines issued for illegal activities in the Amazon fell by 38 percent compared to the previous four years, according to an analysis of Brazilian government data by the Climate Observatory, a network of non-profit environmental groups.
One of the clearest signs of Lula’s intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to reinstate Marina Silva as head of the country’s environment ministry. Silva previously held the position between 2003 and 2008, during which deforestation fell by 53 percent. A former rubber producer in Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she saw as too lenient.
Silva provides a stark contrast to Bolsonaro’s environmental prime minister, Ricardo Salles, who had never set foot in the Amazon when he took office in 2019 and resigned two years later amid accusations that he would facilitate exports of illegally cut wood.
Other steps Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:
— The signing of a decree that would rejuvenate the most important international effort to conserve tropical forests: the Amazon Fund. The fund, which Bolsonaro destroyed, received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for sustainable development in the Amazon.
— Repeal of a Bolsonaro decree that allowed mining in indigenous and environmental protection areas.
— Creation of a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to oversee everything from land borders to education. This ministry will be headed by Sônia Guajajara, the first indigenous woman in the country to hold such an important government post.
“It will not be easy to pass the age of 504 in just four years. But we are willing to use this moment to promote a retreat of Brazil’s spiritual force,” Guajajara said during the inauguration ceremony, which was delayed by damage caused by pro-Bolsonaro riots at the presidential palace.
Covering an area twice the size of India, the Amazon rainforest acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro saw Amazon’s management as an insider’s business, dealing a major blow to Brazil’s global reputation. Lula tries to repair the damage.
During the United Nations climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country’s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. Brazil was expected to host the event in 2019, but Bolsonaro canceled it in 2018. he was elected.
While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex obstacles. For example, getting the cooperation of local officials will not be easy.
Six out of nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro’s allies. These include Rondonia, where settlers of European origin control local power and have dismantled environmental legislation through the state assembly; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunity is pushing rubber tappers who have long fought to preserve the rainforest to cattle grazing.
The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries such as Peru and Venezuela. Illegal mining results in mercury contamination of rivers that indigenous peoples rely on for fishing and drinking.
“Its main cause is the absence of the state,” says Gustavo Geiser, a forensic expert at the Federal Police who has worked at Amazon for more than 15 years.
One area where Lula has more control is the designation of indigenous territories, which are the best-preserved regions of the Amazon.
Lula is under pressure to create 13 new indigenous territories – a process that has stalled under Bolsonaro, who has kept his promise not to give “an inch” of land to indigenous peoples.
An important step will be to expand the size of Unixi, part of one of the most remote and diverse regions in the world, which is home to 23 people. The process of expanding Uneiuxi’s borders began four decades ago and the only remaining step is a presidential signature, which will increase its size by 37 percent to 551,000 hectares (2,100 square miles).
“Lula has already indicated that he would have no problem doing that,” said Kleber Karipuna, a close associate of Guajajara.
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