Brazil’s new president works to reverse Amazon deforestation
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election to a third term as Brazil’s president. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges to expand protected territories in the Amazon and halt a surge in illegal deforestation by appointing well-known environmentalists and Indigenous people to key positions.
Lula is certain to face obstacles from officials at the regional level loyal to his predecessor that still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say he is taking the right first steps to reverse polices of former President Jair Bolsonaro that heavily favored exploiting the Amazon’s resources over protecting them.
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