The Amazon, a major presidential issue in Brazil

It was August 19, 2019, eight months after he came to power. And these images of black clouds which crossed several thousand kilometers towards the South drew the attention of the whole world to the destruction of the largest tropical forest on the planet, with a rain of criticism from the international community.

Three years later, the far-right president is seeking re-election, with an environmental record considered disastrous by environmentalists: under his mandate, annual deforestation in the Amazon has increased by an average of 75% compared to the previous decade. .

For climate change experts, Sunday's election, which opposes him in particular to the former left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, favorite in the polls, will be decisive for the destiny of Brazilian society, but also of the whole of planet.

"This is the most important election in the history of Brazil", assures AFP Marcio Astrini, head of the NGO collective Climate Observatory.

"We are faced with a radical choice: either the Amazon will survive, or it will be condemned to the death penalty with the re-election of Bolsonaro", he insists.

The former paratrooper, whose father was a gold digger in the Amazon in the 1980s, has always been in favor of agricultural or mining activities to the detriment of the forest, including in protected areas such as indigenous reserves.

Last year, the budget devoted to public bodies for the preservation of the environment was divided by three compared to 2014, the year when it was highest, under the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, runner-up to Lula, according to a study carried out by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), with the NGO Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA).

- Bolsonaro against the tide -

But these subjects have been relegated to the background of the electoral campaign, which is more focused on purchasing power and the increase in poverty, in a country where more than 30 million people suffer from hunger.

Scott Denning, an American climate change specialist at the University of Colorado, does not follow Brazilian politics, but closely observes the situation in the Amazon, 60% of whose forest is in Brazil.

According to a recent study, the Brazilian Amazon has already gone from a "carbon sink" to a source of CO2, releasing over the last decade 20% more of this powerful greenhouse gas than it has absorbed.

And these emissions from the Amazon doubled in the first two years of the Bolsonaro government.

"Four more years (of Bolsonaro's tenure) would be a lot of CO2. The Amazon is a carbon sponge, but right now trees are being cut down and burned at a rate too fast for them to grow back," explains Scott Denning.

"The rest of the world is doing everything to reduce emissions, but Bolsonaro is going in the opposite direction," he insists.

- Lula not blameless -

In a statement sent to AFP, Bolsonaro's campaign team defended the head of state's record, "which has balanced environmental preservation and economic growth".

Lula also faced his fair share of criticism when he was president, notably for his decision to build the huge hydroelectric power plant in Belo Monte, in the Amazonian state of Para.

His first year in office, in 2003, was the second-worst on record for Amazon deforestation, with 27,772 km2 deforested, twice the 13,038 km2 under Bolsonaro in 2021.

But his government then managed to gradually reduce this deforestation to historically low levels: in 2010, when he left power, it was four times lower than in 2003.

Two weeks ago, the former steelworker received strong support: that of Marina Silva, his former Minister of the Environment, who had left the government in 2008, judging not to have been supported enough by Lula in his fight for the defense of the Amazon.

Lula promised during his campaign to go "even further" than the commitments made by Brazil to reduce its emissions during the Paris Agreement on the climate, with a policy of zero tolerance against deforestation.