Marina Silva on Flávio Bolsonaro: He will try to finish his father’s ‘perverse project’ to destroy the Amazon
The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has said that if Flávio Bolsonaro becomes president he will seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.
The Amazon was thrown into chaos during Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency, when Brazil’s environment and Indigenous protection agencies were gutted and environmental criminals ran riot, causing surges in deforestation and violence.
Despite that, Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio, is the favourite to beat the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the second round of the presidential election on 25 October. Flávio, 45, beat Lula, 80, by more than 2m votes in the first round last Sunday, amid a wave of anti-incumbency and anti-left sentiment that catapulted a record number of far-right politicians into an already conservative congress.
Silva, a world-renowned environmentalist who was Lula’s environment minister until April, says a second Bolsonaro presidency will spell disaster for the globally crucial ecosystem, for its inhabitants and for the climate crisis.
“I’ve no doubt that this time they will try to finish the perverse project they started with [Jair] Bolsonaro. If they are elected – and God, and the Brazilian people, willing they won’t be – they will use their time to try to speed up as much as possible all of the regressions they can, including to keep themselves in power,” says Silva, who was appointed after Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election.
“The vision they have for the Amazon is the same vision they have for everything. They are denialists. Their vision is that the forest must be removed for economic activities,” she adds. “They will again encourage illegal mining, the invasion of Indigenous lands, and violence against Indigenous and Quilombola communities.”
Silva fears aggressive resource extraction could be turbocharged by Donald Trump’s designs on Latin America, exemplified by the US commandeering Venezuela’s huge oil reserves after the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The Bolsonaros are long-term allies of Trump, who has called Venezuela’s oil “the spoils” of his brief war.
“Brazil cannot [be governed by] a political group that wants to turn itself into an American protectorate, as is the case with Venezuela today,” says Silva, who believes a Flávio Bolsonaro administration would be “subservient” to the US.
Speaking from São Paulo, Silva recalls the “scorched earth” she encountered when she took over a defanged and dispirited environment ministry in January 2023 and set about trying to control soaring Amazon destruction. One of Lula’s first acts was to send troops to expel thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory.
Silva says the “Herculean effort” of environmental and security forces has paid off. Amazon deforestation has fallen nearly 50% under Lula, with an estimated 2,600 sq km (1,004 sq miles) lost this year compared with almost 11,600 sq km during Jair Bolsonaro’s last year in office. Illegal miners and ranchers have been evicted from a succession of Indigenous territories. Tens of billions of dollars of international funding for rainforest protection have been restored after being frozen during Bolsonaro’s era of destruction.
Now, Silva believes all those achievements are in jeopardy. “It’s deeply sad and troubling,” says the 68-year-old, who was born in the Amazon to a family of rubber tappers.
The veteran activist pauses to compose herself as she considers the prospect that in just a few weeks all that work could be undone.
“It’s just like the myth of Sisyphus. Rolling the boulder all the way up to the top and watching it fall back down. Except it won’t fall on open ground – it’s going to fall right on top of all of us,” Silva says of the consequences of allowing deforestation to again spiral out of control.
“Paradoxically, just at the moment when we could be about to achieve the lowest rate of deforestation [in more than a decade] and hit a once unthinkable target of zero deforestation by 2030, we face the threat of a government which … would set all of this back to square one.”
She adds: “It’s frightening, too, to think that [this is happening when] we’re living through a super El Niño, which will bring severe problems of drought and floods … during a government that has zero commitment to the prevention, adaptation and mitigation agenda.”
Even if Flávio Bolsonaro loses, congress’s shift to the far right means the coming years are likely to prove dire for the environment in the world’s most biodiverse country. In the recent election, Bolsonaro’s Liberal party (PL) won 19 of the 54 seats up for grabs in the 81-seat senate and 121 seats of the 513 lower house seats, making it easier for lawmarkers to remove environmental and Indigenous protections.
Silva sought a seat in the senate but was beaten by a former special forces police officer and another Bolsonarista politician. “Even with the current makeup [of congress] we’ve witnessed numerous setbacks,” says Silva, who fears lawmakers will move to “uncreate” conservation units and Indigenous territories.
“It’s a devastating process. I’m worried not just about the Amazon but about all of our biomes, like the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado, the Pantanal, the Pampa. All of Brazil’s biomes are equally threatened by this Trumpist vision.”
Silva’s fears are not confined to the environment. She believed countless social advances achieved during Lula’s three terms as president would also be reversed, including the eradication of hunger and dramatically increased access to higher education.
She argues that Brazil’s democracy is at risk if the Bolsonaros reclaim power, with Jair, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, expected to be released and made a minister.
Those fears grew this week when Flávio Bolsonaro announced he would seek to “re-democratise” Brazil and change the constitution, possibly allowing longer presidential terms.
“That is a very dangerous word, because to an authoritarian mindset, what does re-democratisation mean?” Silva says. “It means democracy for them to stay in power ad infinitum; riding roughshod over constitutional rules; interfering with the logic of the separation of powers; having the power to appoint supreme court justices to mould a supreme court in their own image and likeness. In reality, they are a sort of right-wing version of what was done in Venezuela [under Maduro].”
“They are willing to erode our democracy from within,” she adds.
Silva voices hope that Lula can bounce back in the second round. “I believe deeply that it’s possible,” she says, vowing to spend the coming days battling to convince the more than 30 million people who did not vote in the first round of the “incalculable damage” another Bolsonaro presidency could cause.
On Thursday, a survey by the Datafolha polling institute gave Bolsonaro a 52% to 48% lead over Lula in the runoff.
Silva, who has been defending the Amazon since the 80s, vows to fight on.
“I draw my energy from insisting on living. I believe life means holding on, and the death impulse – strong as it may be – always loses to the life impulse. Look at us: we are here. Our parents and our grandparents are gone, but we made it. I truly believe this instinct to live will prevail. My hope is that it proves stronger right now, so Latin America isn’t consumed by this drive for death.”
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
Exclusive: Former Brazilian environment minister warns of destruction as far-right scion favourite to become president. The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has…
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has said that if Flávio Bolsonaro becomes president he will seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.
The Amazon was thrown into chaos during Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency, when Brazil’s environment and Indigenous protection agencies were gutted and environmental criminals ran riot, causing surges in deforestation and violence.
Despite that, Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio, is the favourite to beat the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the second round of the presidential election on 25 October. Flávio, 45, beat Lula, 80, by more than 2m votes in the first round last Sunday, amid a wave of anti-incumbency and anti-left sentiment that catapulted a record number of far-right politicians into an already conservative congress.
Silva, a world-renowned environmentalist who was Lula’s environment minister until April, says a second Bolsonaro presidency will spell disaster for the globally crucial ecosystem, for its inhabitants and for the climate crisis.
“I’ve no doubt that this time they will try to finish the perverse project they started with [Jair] Bolsonaro. If they are elected – and God, and the Brazilian people, willing they won’t be – they will use their time to try to speed up as much as possible all of the regressions they can, including to keep themselves in power,” says Silva, who was appointed after Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election.
“The vision they have for the Amazon is the same vision they have for everything. They are denialists. Their vision is that the forest must be removed for economic activities,” she adds. “They will again encourage illegal mining, the invasion of Indigenous lands, and violence against Indigenous and Quilombola communities.”
Silva fears aggressive resource extraction could be turbocharged by Donald Trump’s designs on Latin America, exemplified by the US commandeering Venezuela’s huge oil reserves after the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The Bolsonaros are long-term allies of Trump, who has called Venezuela’s oil “the spoils” of his brief war.
“Brazil cannot [be governed by] a political group that wants to turn itself into an American protectorate, as is the case with Venezuela today,” says Silva, who believes a Flávio Bolsonaro administration would be “subservient” to the US.
Speaking from São Paulo, Silva recalls the “scorched earth” she encountered when she took over a defanged and dispirited environment ministry in January 2023 and set about trying to control soaring Amazon destruction. One of Lula’s first acts was to send troops to expel thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory.
Silva says the “Herculean effort” of environmental and security forces has paid off. Amazon deforestation has fallen nearly 50% under Lula, with an estimated 2,600 sq km (1,004 sq miles) lost this year compared with almost 11,600 sq km during Jair Bolsonaro’s last year in office. Illegal miners and ranchers have been evicted from a succession of Indigenous territories. Tens of billions of dollars of international funding for rainforest protection have been restored after being frozen during Bolsonaro’s era of destruction.
Now, Silva believes all those achievements are in jeopardy. “It’s deeply sad and troubling,” says the 68-year-old, who was born in the Amazon to a family of rubber tappers.
The veteran activist pauses to compose herself as she considers the prospect that in just a few weeks all that work could be undone.
“It’s just like the myth of Sisyphus. Rolling the boulder all the way up to the top and watching it fall back down. Except it won’t fall on open ground – it’s going to fall right on top of all of us,” Silva says of the consequences of allowing deforestation to again spiral out of control.
“Paradoxically, just at the moment when we could be about to achieve the lowest rate of deforestation [in more than a decade] and hit a once unthinkable target of zero deforestation by 2030, we face the threat of a government which … would set all of this back to square one.”
She adds: “It’s frightening, too, to think that [this is happening when] we’re living through a super El Niño, which will bring severe problems of drought and floods … during a government that has zero commitment to the prevention, adaptation and mitigation agenda.”
Even if Flávio Bolsonaro loses, congress’s shift to the far right means the coming years are likely to prove dire for the environment in the world’s most biodiverse country. In the recent election, Bolsonaro’s Liberal party (PL) won 19 of the 54 seats up for grabs in the 81-seat senate and 121 seats of the 513 lower house seats, making it easier for lawmarkers to remove environmental and Indigenous protections.
Silva sought a seat in the senate but was beaten by a former special forces police officer and another Bolsonarista politician. “Even with the current makeup [of congress] we’ve witnessed numerous setbacks,” says Silva, who fears lawmakers will move to “uncreate” conservation units and Indigenous territories.
“It’s a devastating process. I’m worried not just about the Amazon but about all of our biomes, like the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado, the Pantanal, the Pampa. All of Brazil’s biomes are equally threatened by this Trumpist vision.”
Silva’s fears are not confined to the environment. She believed countless social advances achieved during Lula’s three terms as president would also be reversed, including the eradication of hunger and dramatically increased access to higher education.
She argues that Brazil’s democracy is at risk if the Bolsonaros reclaim power, with Jair, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, expected to be released and made a minister.
Those fears grew this week when Flávio Bolsonaro announced he would seek to “re-democratise” Brazil and change the constitution, possibly allowing longer presidential terms.
“That is a very dangerous word, because to an authoritarian mindset, what does re-democratisation mean?” Silva says. “It means democracy for them to stay in power ad infinitum; riding roughshod over constitutional rules; interfering with the logic of the separation of powers; having the power to appoint supreme court justices to mould a supreme court in their own image and likeness. In reality, they are a sort of right-wing version of what was done in Venezuela [under Maduro].”
“They are willing to erode our democracy from within,” she adds.
Silva voices hope that Lula can bounce back in the second round. “I believe deeply that it’s possible,” she says, vowing to spend the coming days battling to convince the more than 30 million people who did not vote in the first round of the “incalculable damage” another Bolsonaro presidency could cause.
On Thursday, a survey by the Datafolha polling institute gave Bolsonaro a 52% to 48% lead over Lula in the runoff.
Silva, who has been defending the Amazon since the 80s, vows to fight on.
“I draw my energy from insisting on living. I believe life means holding on, and the death impulse – strong as it may be – always loses to the life impulse. Look at us: we are here. Our parents and our grandparents are gone, but we made it. I truly believe this instinct to live will prevail. My hope is that it proves stronger right now, so Latin America isn’t consumed by this drive for death.”
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has said that if Flávio Bolsonaro becomes president he will seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.
The Amazon was thrown into chaos during Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency, when Brazil’s environment and Indigenous protection agencies were gutted and environmental criminals ran riot, causing surges in deforestation and violence.
Despite that, Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio, is the favourite to beat the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the second round of the presidential election on 25 October. Flávio, 45, beat Lula, 80, by more than 2m votes in the first round last Sunday, amid a wave of anti-incumbency and anti-left sentiment that catapulted a record number of far-right politicians into an already conservative congress.
Silva, a world-renowned environmentalist who was Lula’s environment minister until April, says a second Bolsonaro presidency will spell disaster for the globally crucial ecosystem, for its inhabitants and for the climate crisis.
“I’ve no doubt that this time they will try to finish the perverse project they started with [Jair] Bolsonaro. If they are elected – and God, and the Brazilian people, willing they won’t be – they will use their time to try to speed up as much as possible all of the regressions they can, including to keep themselves in power,” says Silva, who was appointed after Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election.
“The vision they have for the Amazon is the same vision they have for everything. They are denialists. Their vision is that the forest must be removed for economic activities,” she adds. “They will again encourage illegal mining, the invasion of Indigenous lands, and violence against Indigenous and Quilombola communities.”
Silva fears aggressive resource extraction could be turbocharged by Donald Trump’s designs on Latin America, exemplified by the US commandeering Venezuela’s huge oil reserves after the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The Bolsonaros are long-term allies of Trump, who has called Venezuela’s oil “the spoils” of his brief war.
“Brazil cannot [be governed by] a political group that wants to turn itself into an American protectorate, as is the case with Venezuela today,” says Silva, who believes a Flávio Bolsonaro administration would be “subservient” to the US.
Speaking from São Paulo, Silva recalls the “scorched earth” she encountered when she took over a defanged and dispirited environment ministry in January 2023 and set about trying to control soaring Amazon destruction. One of Lula’s first acts was to send troops to expel thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory.
Silva says the “Herculean effort” of environmental and security forces has paid off. Amazon deforestation has fallen nearly 50% under Lula, with an estimated 2,600 sq km (1,004 sq miles) lost this year compared with almost 11,600 sq km during Jair Bolsonaro’s last year in office. Illegal miners and ranchers have been evicted from a succession of Indigenous territories. Tens of billions of dollars of international funding for rainforest protection have been restored after being frozen during Bolsonaro’s era of destruction.
Now, Silva believes all those achievements are in jeopardy. “It’s deeply sad and troubling,” says the 68-year-old, who was born in the Amazon to a family of rubber tappers.
The veteran activist pauses to compose herself as she considers the prospect that in just a few weeks all that work could be undone.
“It’s just like the myth of Sisyphus. Rolling the boulder all the way up to the top and watching it fall back down. Except it won’t fall on open ground – it’s going to fall right on top of all of us,” Silva says of the consequences of allowing deforestation to again spiral out of control.
“Paradoxically, just at the moment when we could be about to achieve the lowest rate of deforestation [in more than a decade] and hit a once unthinkable target of zero deforestation by 2030, we face the threat of a government which … would set all of this back to square one.”
She adds: “It’s frightening, too, to think that [this is happening when] we’re living through a super El Niño, which will bring severe problems of drought and floods … during a government that has zero commitment to the prevention, adaptation and mitigation agenda.”
Even if Flávio Bolsonaro loses, congress’s shift to the far right means the coming years are likely to prove dire for the environment in the world’s most biodiverse country. In the recent election, Bolsonaro’s Liberal party (PL) won 19 of the 54 seats up for grabs in the 81-seat senate and 121 seats of the 513 lower house seats, making it easier for lawmarkers to remove environmental and Indigenous protections.
Silva sought a seat in the senate but was beaten by a former special forces police officer and another Bolsonarista politician. “Even with the current makeup [of congress] we’ve witnessed numerous setbacks,” says Silva, who fears lawmakers will move to “uncreate” conservation units and Indigenous territories.
“It’s a devastating process. I’m worried not just about the Amazon but about all of our biomes, like the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado, the Pantanal, the Pampa. All of Brazil’s biomes are equally threatened by this Trumpist vision.”
Silva’s fears are not confined to the environment. She believed countless social advances achieved during Lula’s three terms as president would also be reversed, including the eradication of hunger and dramatically increased access to higher education.
She argues that Brazil’s democracy is at risk if the Bolsonaros reclaim power, with Jair, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, expected to be released and made a minister.
Those fears grew this week when Flávio Bolsonaro announced he would seek to “re-democratise” Brazil and change the constitution, possibly allowing longer presidential terms.
“That is a very dangerous word, because to an authoritarian mindset, what does re-democratisation mean?” Silva says. “It means democracy for them to stay in power ad infinitum; riding roughshod over constitutional rules; interfering with the logic of the separation of powers; having the power to appoint supreme court justices to mould a supreme court in their own image and likeness. In reality, they are a sort of right-wing version of what was done in Venezuela [under Maduro].”
“They are willing to erode our democracy from within,” she adds.
Silva voices hope that Lula can bounce back in the second round. “I believe deeply that it’s possible,” she says, vowing to spend the coming days battling to convince the more than 30 million people who did not vote in the first round of the “incalculable damage” another Bolsonaro presidency could cause.
On Thursday, a survey by the Datafolha polling institute gave Bolsonaro a 52% to 48% lead over Lula in the runoff.
Silva, who has been defending the Amazon since the 80s, vows to fight on.
“I draw my energy from insisting on living. I believe life means holding on, and the death impulse – strong as it may be – always loses to the life impulse. Look at us: we are here. Our parents and our grandparents are gone, but we made it. I truly believe this instinct to live will prevail. My hope is that it proves stronger right now, so Latin America isn’t consumed by this drive for death.”
Read the full story at The Guardian ↗
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
- Exclusive: Former Brazilian environment minister warns of destruction as far-right scion favourite to become president.
- The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has…