Amazing Amazon

Brazilians were on tenterhooksTenterhooks are hooked nails used to fasten cloth to a frame. But being "on tenterhooks" is a phrase used to describe a feeling of nervous anticipation. . The first round in the elections had been won easily by the former president, "Lula" da Silva. But he had failed to get the 50% of votes needed for outright victory, and in the second round the race looked much tighter. Would the sitting president, Jair Bolsonaro, manage to cling to power after all?

Finally, the results came through. Lula - known throughout Brazil by his nickname - had won by two million votes. Even so, that gave him just 1.6% of the vote more than Bolsonaro.

It was an incredible comeback. Lula had served as president from 2003 to 2010, but been arrested seven years later for corruption and money launderingMaking money acquired illegally seem to have come from a legitimate source, often by feeding it into the income stream of a legitimate organisation.. He was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison - by a judge who went on to become a minister in Bolsonaro's government.

Lula spent 580 days in jail. But at the end of 2019, Brazil's highest court decided that he had been imprisoned unlawfully. It then ruled that his trial had been politically biased. All the charges against him were discredited - so he was free to run for the presidency again.  

The two candidates could not have been more different. Lula is a left-wing former trade unionAn organisation of workers who band together to negotiate their wages and working conditions collectively, on grounds that this gives them more bargaining power. leader who left school at 12 to work as a shoe-shine boy. In his first spell as president he prioritised ending hunger and providing better housing for the poor.

Bolsonaro is a far-right former soldier who supports big business. He has spoken against women's rights, gay rights, immigrants and gun control. He once said that the only way of changing Brazil was by "killing 30,000 people".¹

He has been a strong supporter of Donald Trump, whose scepticismHaving doubts about whether something is true. about Covid-19 he shared. Brazil now has the third highest death toll from the virus in the world.²

Nothing, though, divides Lula and Bolsonaro more than their views on the environment. Txai Surui, a campaigner for the rainforest, summed it up: "One candidate wants to save the Amazon, and the other wants to burn it down."

Bolsonaro has said that development should always come before the environment, and that what Brazilians do to the rainforest is their own business. Under his government, businesses were given free rein to cut down trees in the rainforest and burn it to create agricultural land.

Last year an average of 18 trees were felled per second, destroying an area bigger than Northern Ireland. Illegal mining was also encouraged, and the rights of Amazon tribes were ignored.

Under Lula, a satellite system was created to alert the authorities of any tree-felling in the rainforest - but Bolsonaro's officials largely ignored it. 

In his victory speech last night, Lula invited international co-operation to preserve the rainforest. "Brazil and the planet need an Amazon alive and breathing," he said. "A tree, still standing, is worth more than a ton of wood cut down illegally."

A week before COP27The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as the Conference of the Parties (COP). begins, many say it was the best news delegates could have asked for.

Did yesterday's Brazilian election change everything?

Yes: Brazil now has a president who cares about the rainforest and will do all he can to protect it. Preserving its 39 billion trees will play a vital part in bringing global warming under control.

No: Even without further damage to the rainforest, we will struggle to restrict carbon emissionsWhen a gas is let off from something, like a car, it is an emission. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. enough to curb climate change. And a future president could prove as irresponsible as Bolsonaro.

Or... The fact that so many Brazilians put voting for Bolsonaro ahead of saving the planet shows what environmentalists are up against. Educating people about climate change is essential to combating it.