With his leftist credentials and background as a factory worker in polluted Sao Paulo, environmentalists had high hopes of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva when he took office in 2003.
BRASILIA, Brazil — With his leftist credentials and background as a factory worker in polluted Sao Paulo, environmentalists had high hopes of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva when he took office in 2003.
But the results are mixed. Plans for controversial hydroelectric damns in the Amazon to feed power-hungry cities and continued deforestation contrast with the creation of state-protected reserves now covering 10 percent of the rainforest.
The tension between the two sides will mark Lula's second term if he wins re-election Sunday, as is widely expected.
"I have some good things to say, but it's mixed with frustration. There's a lot of work to be done," said Ana Cristina Barros, who heads the Nature Conservancy in Brazil.
Brazil's environmental debate has taken on global dimensions. Today, Lula is caretaker of the vast Amazon rainforest, the largest preserve of biodiversity in the world.
The global green movement claimed the Amazon as its own two decades ago as rock star Sting started writing songs about it and native rubber-tapper Chico Mendes was killed for leading protests against deforestation.
But Brazil's economy is fueled by commodity exports, so many people see trees, land and minerals in the Amazon as the country's best hope for lifting some 50 million citizens out of poverty.
"This government has two faces. One is led by business interests and the other by social interests, and the two are in constant tension," said Adalberto Marcondes, editor of the newsletter Envolverde.
Dispute over how to develop the Amazon marked Lula's first term. Brazilians are clamoring for economic growth, which for many people means more logging and more energy for industry.
Brazil will face electricity shortages before 2010 if growth is not matched by more generation capacity, power analysts say.
Plans are underway for two new large hydroelectric dams, one deep in the Amazon along the Rio Madeira and another close to the agricultural frontier along the Rio Xingu. Brazil also wants more natural gas pipelines crisscrossing the Amazon.
Construction groups are lobbying for more infrastructure projects and complain about environmental licensing laws.
Environmentalists want smaller hydroelectric dams. They say small sustainable development projects would do more for the roughly 20 million people who live in the rainforest.
GOLDEN CHAINSAW
In Lula's first term, land-clearing in the Amazon surged as a global boom in demand for soy and beef tempted farmers and ranchers deeper into the rainforest. The export income lifted Brazil's economy but a chunk of rainforest the size of Massachusetts was cleared in one year.
After peaking in 2004, deforestation slowed by a third in 2005 and is expected to slow another 10 percent this year. But environmentalists worry the real reason for the decline is waning demand for soy, beef and timber.
Greenpeace gave a "Golden Chainsaw" award -- for the person who contributed most to Amazon destruction -- to Mato Grosso governor Bruno Maggi, a big-time farmer known as the Soy King.
Lula was named as runner-up.
Environmentalists give Lula some credit for his decision to nearly double the acreage of state-protected conservation areas to about 10 percent of Brazil's Amazon territory.
Environment minister Marina Silva gets most of the credit for environmental policies in the last four years, they say.
Silva, the daughter of Amazon rubber-tappers, orchestrated more than a dozen police raids to break up illegal logging rings, some involving the state environmental agency.
But Sergio Leitao of Greenpeace says measures like the creation of reserves will be a symbolic gesture if the government cannot police the land.
A World Wildlife Fund study found Brazil could meet its electricity needs through 2020 with renewable resources and conservation -- and save 33 billion reais ($15 billion).
"Brazil needs to stop looking at the environment as a problem and start seeing it as a solution," said Denise Hamu, secretary general of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil.
Source: Reuters
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