As scientists warn Brazil’s rainforest is nearing a point of irreversible decline, Lula makes ambitious deforestation pledge
The Amazon is home to a multitude of magnificent species, which for the first time in over a millennium are facing global extinction. But it is also a region of unparalleled ecological value. Since European settlers first visited it, the Amazon rainforest has been a vital source of food, fuel, fibre and medicine.
However, as scientists warn Brazil’s rainforest is nearing a point of irreversible decline, the president of the country’s largest and richest state is making an optimistic, if ambitious, pledge: to make it the first rainforest in the world to be restored to its natural state.
In March the country’s largest logging company announced its plan to remove 1m hectares of trees, or about one third of the forest cover on the Brazilian Amazon – enough to make a national park.
According to the federal environment ministry, this would only happen if there was sufficient international support.
If the Amazon is to be saved, it will need to be returned to its pre-colonisation state.
This would involve replacing the trees removed, restoring the forest and re-afforestation.
Many people in the region fear that the Amazon will be lost.
But in the words of the minister responsible for rainforest protection, it is up to Brazil to “show the world that it has the will and means to restore and protect the Amazon”.
To many, Lula’s commitment to the Amazon is an extraordinary statement of his country’s environmental policy. But it is also the latest of his many efforts to make a difference to the lives of most of the world’s poor.
“The world is full of people who are poor, but feel so comfortable that they don’t think about their fellow human beings,” he told Reuters. “They think about themselves.”
The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest, covering nearly 20.5m square kilometres. It is the size of England and Wales.
It is home to a huge variety of species: some rare and endangered, others simply beautiful, including