Front Burner - The fate of the Amazon at stake as Brazil votes

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Roberto de Oliveira Alves is a cattle farmer in the Brazilian Amazon. He’s also a staunch supporter of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. And like many others in the state of Rondônia his land is being carved out of the Amazon rainforest to make space for ranchers and farmers to expand. With the final round of Brazil’s presidential election coming up, scientists warn that the fate of the Amazon is on the ballot, too. Tens of thousands of illegal fires have already decimated parts of the precious ecosystem, and activists warn if Bolsonaro wins again, even more of the Amazon will go — a loss that could have a devastating impact on climate change. CBC’s International Climate Correspondent Susan Ormiston recently got back from Brazil, and today on Front Burner she explains what’s at stake for the Amazon when the country votes on Sunday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. That's Roberto de Oliveira Alves. He's a cattle farmer in the Brazilian Amazon.

He's also a staunch supporter of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, like many others in his northwestern state, where land is being carved out of the Amazon rainforest to make space for ranchers and farmers to expand. Here, it is in full swing. Every day, life is getting better and better. In our region, there is still a lot of space available, and we can still maintain the conservation area. With the final vote of Brazil's presidential election coming up, scientists warn that the fate of the Amazon is on the ballot too. Tens of thousands of illegal fires

have already decimated parts of the precious ecosystem. And activists warn if Bolsonaro wins again, even more of the Amazon will go. Something that could have a devastating impact on climate change. Climate change is on a tipping point. So whatever we do to change to the better, it has to be done now. The deforestation here is growing very fast and is being backed up by the politics, the politicians, the presidents. CBC's international climate correspondent Susan Ormiston recently got back from Brazil and she's here with us today to explain what's at stake for the Amazon when the country votes next week.

Susan, hi. It's so great to have you. Hi, Jamie. Great to be back. So I know that you just got back from Brazil, where you're reporting on a growing concern from climate activists and scientists that the fate of the Amazon rainforest rests on the presidential election. We're going to get to that soon. But first, tell me about this cattle farmer in the Brazilian Amazon that you met. What did you learn from him? A lot. His name is Roberto de Oliveira Alves.

He's in his mid-50s. He owns 270 head of cattle on land he's owned for about eight years. And he welcomed us into his very modest home, you know, open air kitchen with hammocks for sleeping. Then he took us out onto his land. And he would call out to the cows to approach him and proceeded to tell us why he believed that Bolsonaro is the guy for Brazil at the moment. Because he's pro-development. The farmer told us he feels like everyday life is getting better. Why? Because, you know, in the past he's felt like a pariah for ranching on land carved out of the Amazon, even though that was done many years ago before he owned it.

carved out of the Amazon, even though that was done many years ago before he owned it. And now he feels like the government is behind him, you know, urging him to be entrepreneurial, to clear more land, to be a developer. And he believes that the rainforest is not in jeopardy and can survive more clearing, more cutting, that conservation is one thing and clearing the land for agribusiness is another. And he believes they're on the right track. And in fact, he said he was so convinced that Bolsonaro would win the next election. He said, you know, we need him to get in for another four years because then we can really achieve our goal, which he means expand his business and that of his neighbors.

And this is Bolsonaro territory, Jamie. We were at a truck stop with transport trucks shrink-wrapped in Bolsonaro campaign signs and his image swaying in the breeze suspended above the gas pumps. So this is definitely his part of the country. That part of the country, the Northwest state that you visited, sounds a bit like the Wild West. What did it look like? What's it like there? There's a large center, Porto Velo, which is a hub for agribusiness. But drive an hour or two out and you really get to open land cut out from the Amazon. on. And we stopped in one town near his ranch where it did look a bit like the Wild West with a few shops and a few cafes, restaurants on either side. And then this broad road, muddy road,

really, no pavement, rotted and stretched for, you know, two or three blocks, if you were. And you just had this vision that you were out a bit in frontier land. In fact, some of these people are called frontiersmen. That's the kind of feeling it had. So, you know, you of course talked about how this farmer wants Bolsonaro to win because he's a champion of them developing this area. And I know that climate activists are desperate for his challenger, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva or Lula to win. And just tell me a bit more about the stakes here. Well, it is pitting Bolsonaro against Lula, as he's commonly known. It's almost a battle for the soul of Brazil. Brazil's presidential election is heading for a second round runoff

after no candidate won 50% of the vote. The socialist former president, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, has 48%. The right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro won 44 percent of the vote. It's a very important election, probably the most consequential in decades, because you have this right and left split. And as one person put to me, you've always had this split in Brazilian politics and many other countries, but never with the hatred. in Brazilian politics in many other countries, but never with the hatred. So, Bolsonaro is revered, loved, loyal followers, much as you see here in the United States. He's been called the Trump of the tropics. And so, he's got this, you know, avid following. And then you have Lula, who was

a former president, who's running on sort of the halcyon years when things were much better in Brazil and trying to encourage people that he will bring a better standard of life to Brazilians. And in between these two polls, you have the Amazon, you know, this mythic fabled forest, the largest rainforest in the world that has become part of the election. It's on the ballot. And how bad has Bolsonaro been for the Amazon? Well, it depends who you ask, of course. You ask the farmer, he would say he's been great for the Amazon. Of course, on the other side, scientists, environmental advocates, many average Brazilians are saying Bolsonaro has been a disaster, catastrophic were the words we heard to the Amazon.

Why? Because 73% more land has been deforested during his term, so he's flipped the equation on that. He's weakened environmental protection laws and many suggest that he's turned a blind eye to illegal activity in the Amazon, poaching, stealing land, land grabbers, and that this has caused a real sense that people can get away with using the Amazon, clearing the Amazon, and not be severely punished for it. The Amazon cannot support four more years of Bolsonaro.

Today, the Amazon has been given over to drug trafficking, arms trafficking, illegal mining, land grabbing. So it's essential to have a government that is committed to democracy and to changing the predatory model of development. One environmental activist I spoke to in Sao Paulo said that Bolsonaro is a climate denier and that this is a very difficult and a critical point for the Amazon in the history of Brazil. The whole world depends on the Amazon rainforest staying intact. This forest is worth infinitely more, as is. Many people still believe in this country and elsewhere that you can take bits of this, you can fragment this forest, and it'll

still be okay. Well, you can in very small amounts. And the message really is we've already done that and we can't go any further. And what makes them think that Lula would be a better option here? Fair question, because he was president. And during that time, his record on the Amazon was mixed. He certainly didn't seize it as the most important strategy. But, you know, the world has changed and climate politics has changed since Lula was in government. His term ended in 2010. And now he's been persuaded that people need to look at the Amazon differently. He has promised to combat

illegal deforestation. He's said that no single other tree needs to be felled in the Brazilian Amazon for economic use. very conservative through the Bolsonaro years and has stayed extremely conservative. So he could be prevented from putting some of these positions into government. But I think many people who work in the sector of environmental protection believe that he would strengthen, he would turn back the clock on their ability to patrol and protect the conservation of the Amazon. Tell me more about how these threats to the Amazon have played out under Bolsonaro. So scientists will say that the biggest threat right now is deforestation. That there's a cycle of it. Most of it is illegal.

I mean, a system. It's a system, Jamie. Loggers come in, they fell the big trees, even protected species. Then land grabbers move in, they clear the underbrush, and then they flip the land to farmers or ranchers. And this often happens far away from the main roads. So it's hard to see through the canopy that these areas are being deforested. And scientists say, look, they're going to make some species extinct by cutting out parts of this very highly diverse forest.

And that it will release too much carbon dioxide and maybe become a savanna. So those are the threats. And they really believe that under Bolsonaro, these have escalated in size and intensity. I know you actually saw one of these fires. What was that like? Well, we sort of saw it. Again, as I described, it's very hard to find them. And

what you see is smoke on the horizon. And sort of the last hour of our second day, we saw this smoke swirling on the horizon. And we had a drone. Our fixer was with us. The drone went up and traveled about a kilometer and a half into the forest over the canopy so we got these really startling images of a smoldering fire on the ground you know an old beat up pickup truck front-end loader that was well used and a couple of guys you know trying to monitor this fire as it was going and we're told that by conservationists that over 90% of these fires are illegal. They are not wildfires. And on one day while we were there, in the whole Amazon,

there were more than 2000 fires burning. Wow. You got an opportunity to see the Amazon from a bird's eye view, hey? And how did it feel to see the rainforest that way? a bird's eye view, hey? And how did it feel to see the rainforest that way? Privileged. You know, we climbed up 40 meters or so, 220 steps up a research tower, there are several of them, and you looked out over this undulating carpet of green and many hues of green with all the diversity. You're on top of the canopy and it's so spectacular and awesome to see the different trees and the fact that it just continues, honestly, as far as the eye can see. I mean, in our urban landscape, it's hard to even imagine a forest could exist like this.

And it's also different from what you would see in Canada, for example, where, you know, there might be a stand of trees that's all one species. There are 16,000 different species of trees in the Amazon. And then the sound, you know, of birds screaming pihas, crickets at night, even howling monkeys, which sound like an approaching windstorm. So it's a very awesome place to be. And you can understand why people want to preserve the sanctity of it and keep it intact. I just want to underline here that this isn't just about Brazil, right? I know this is something that we talked about on the show before.

Like, how critical is the rainforest role in regulating the entire planet's climate? Well, I think you need to remember that this is a massive rainforest. It's two-thirds, covers two-thirds the area of Canada. It's hard to even get your head around it. And the trees there, it's estimated, hold carbon. They suck it in for photosynthesis and they hold maybe the equivalent of four to five years of emissions in that forest. So as you cut pieces out, scientists tell us that it will release the carbon, adding to global warming, which is something the world is absolutely trying to avoid. And so there's that. And

then there's the idea that with a warming climate and the deforestation, that the Amazon will become more like a savanna. So it will lose this, you know, delicate balance of being a rainforest, which creates rain and cycles through a system that irrigates much of the country of Brazil and also, you know, is important to the overall climate. I know that you visited a research post deep inside the forest. I think it was on the other side of the Amazon from the rancher, right? I will say I'm very jealous. That's a pretty incredible assignment I would kill for that. And what kind of scientific work is being done at this camp? Yeah, really a fabulous entree into the Amazon with a team of scientists whose life has been devoted to studying, researching the forest. So Manaus is sort of a gateway for

the Amazon for tourism, but also for science. We drove up a highway and then two hours, 40 kilometers took two hours, Jamie, along the worst rutted road I've ever been on, a spine-jarring experience. Oh, I hope you got some carsick. Oh, no, no carsick, but I needed a massage after that one. Arrived at what was called Camp 41, one of a series of research camps. And just imagine, you know, your most basic, modest summer camp. There are a couple of open-air buildings, you know, a barbecue pit for cooking and hammocks for sleeping. That's where we stayed for a couple of days with the scientists as they showed us what type of work they're doing. It started in the late 1970s by a guy called Thomas

Lovejoy who came to the Amazon and wanted to study fragmentation, essentially taking parcels of land, clearing them, and what happened at the edges of the forest. Now that that's kind of similar work, only they're looking at the effects of climate change on the forest, how rising carbon dioxide levels will affect the rainforest, how will it adapt to that. And they worry about that. And there's numerous studies going on.

So field research is coming in and out of this camp to do their work in the unbroken forest. territory. Nearly all of that is Amazon forest and indigenous people have been on the front lines of the fight to protect the Amazon. And how dangerous has that become during Bolsonaro's presidency? It's certainly escalated. People believe partly because of this sort of illegal activity happening with impunity. People believe that they have the righteous side to go in and either clear land or poach and that they won't be caught or penalized severely. So, I mean, think back to last summer, there was an activist and a British journalist traveling in the Amazon to investigate illegal poaching in indigenous land. They were shot, dismembered, their bodies buried in the Amazon. It's very dangerous. And we spoke to a woman who's spent a large part of her life trying to help Indigenous tribes

in the Amazon protect their land. Laura Vicuna was her name. And when I asked her about how difficult it was to do her work and defend the Amazon, her eyes welled up. She got quite emotional and she said it's very dangerous to defend the Amazon, not only in Rondônia province or Rondônia state, but also in the country of Brazil in general. Sometimes I'm not even at liberty to stand in front of my house because threats are constant. We feel this direct pressure with cars that stop in front of my house,

taking pictures and putting on psychological pressure. It is very dangerous to be a defender of human rights and to be a defender of environmental rights. She described how many people, herself included, feel intimidated, threatened, and to be a defender of environmental rights. She described how many people, herself included, feel intimidated, threatened, harassed. But she said that the fear can't paralyze them because they want their world to be different and they want to preserve indigenous lands free from poaching, free from people stealing parts of the land in order to clear them. free from poaching, free from people stealing parts of the land in order to clear them.

We have to play our part in the world for the world to be different, even when afraid, even when threatened. We, the Amazonians, will not be able to save the Amazon without the help of outsiders, without this international pressure. The Amazon is the common good of all humanity, so that all humanity can live. The Amazon must be taken care of so that we have a climate where it can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Listen to this podcast. Just search for Money for Cops. Susan, I get that the Amazon would be top of mind for the cattle farmers, the ranchers who are voting in this election,

and of course, climate activists and scientists who are voting in this election. But what about the rest of the Brazilian population? Like how high is the Amazon or climate change on Brazilians' list of priorities right now? Well, as you might imagine, it's not at the top. I mean, Brazil has rising inflation, crime issues, you know, wrenching poverty. That's all on the ballot and ranks higher than protecting the Amazon. But we spoke to many Brazilians and asked them about the forest and they were quite clear, you know, this forest is steeped in their psyche. The Amazon has this mystique, this allure for Brazilians and for the world and they feel it too.

So when asked asked they all want to protect the Amazon. What we're talking about here is the battle over power and balance Jamie. So how much of the Amazon can be used for economic purposes, for agribusiness and how much needs to be preserved for the integrity of the forest and to avoid any further threats and to avoid altering, you know, adding to climate problems. So this is what's at issue in the election, which takes place on Sunday of this week. And really, I feel like this is the battle for the soul of Brazil, which includes this vast green

space which occupies so much of Brazil. Okay. Well, lots to look out for. Susan, thank you so much for this. This is great. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.