Sunday, October 2nd, is the day when more than 156 million Brazilians have, in their hands, the right to choose the politicians who will lead and decide the course of the country and the states of the federation from January 1, 2023 by means of a vote. According to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), 156,454,011 people are eligible to vote in this ballot, a number that is 6.21% higher compared with the 2018 election. Twenty million voters, out of this total, represent the electorate of the nine states that make up the Legal Amazon (Pará, Amazonas, Acre, Amapá, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins, Maranhão and Mato Grosso). They represent the voices of those who live and work in a region of paradoxes, in a territory of great natural wealth and biodiversity, economic potential, but which still presents extremely low levels of human and social development.

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For two times throughout this year, the Liberal Group, from Pará, opened space for the main candidates for the presidency of the Republic to present their views and plans for the Amazon region – in the first semester, with exclusive interviews with all the pre-candidates registered at the time; and later on, in September, as part of the “Proposals for the Amazon” Project, carried out in partnership with the communication means from the other eight states in the region. In this last meeting, only candidates Felipe D’Avila (NOVO), Ciro Gomes (PDT) and Soraya Thronicke (União Brasil) were interviewed. Candidates Lula (PT), Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and Simone Tebet (MDB), gave up the space due to incompatibility of agendas.

Issues which recurrently emerge when the Amazon Region is at stake were approached by the presidential candidates and were gathered, reproduced and summarized in this report, as a way of presenting their perceptions about the region and its challenges.

Science, national sovereignty and drug trafficking highlighted

Some topics permeated the positions of the three most prominent candidates in electoral polls, in relation to the Amazon. For Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, investment in scientific research is fundamental in the region. In the interview, in the first semester, he emphasized. “People must understand that, if we invest correctly in research, the biodiversity provided by the Amazon ecosystem will allow us to make it a source of enrichment for the people of the Amazon region” he highlighted. When Lula returned to the same theme in his last visit to the capital of Pará before the elections, in September, he added “Our forest will no longer be a place to be burned or cut down. It will be studied and researched to find out how, by preserving biodiversity, we can improve the lives of millions of people who live here”.

The sovereignty of the Amazon is a recurring theme in the discourse of candidate Jair Bolsonaro and during the interview carried out by the Liberal group, it was not different. Bolsonaro mentioned his last visit to Russia, before the war against Ukraine, when he thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his position towards the Amazon. “On two occasions, when the climate in the world was in dispute, other countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, the United States, tried to relativize our sovereignty over the Amazon. And Putin, with his veto power, said that the Amazon belonged to Brazilians, and the discussion was interrupted. In other words, people from foreign countries ‘have an eye’ on the Amazon region (...). If we relax here, and get into the politically correct discourse, we are bound to lose our sovereignty over the Amazon,” he said.

The concern about defending the territory of the Legal Amazon against the organized crime, is among the issues highlighted during the interview with candidate Ciro Gomes, in early September. “Today, an important part of the Amazon area is controlled by the 'crime holding'. In Alto Solimões, where Tabatinga is, where they killed Tom Philips, where they killed that colleague from Funai, there is where 'crime holding' is. It means drug trafficking laundering money with illegal hunting and fishing, with illegal mining, with exploitation, you know, wood smuggling. (...). Evidently, FUNAI was dismantled, ICMBio was dismantled, IBAMA's management and control bodies were completely dismantled. This is what we need to solve in Brazil”, he affirmed.

The challenge of preserving and producing in the Amazon region

A common point to all candidates was the matter of how to develop the Amazon without raising, and still managing to cease the environmental impacts caused by human action in the region. See below what each one said about the challenge of preserving and producing:

● Ciro Gomes: “We can develop the Amazon and, at the same time, provide an excellent model and exemplary response to the world, which is concerned with environmental sustainability, decarbonization of the economy, and with the protocols that Brazil signed in Kyoto and renovated in Paris. In short, Brazil has the capacity, like no other nation in the world, to head, and not to be a kind of international pariah. (...) I intend to reconcile Brazil. How do I plan to do this? Well, the first thing is to develop an ecological economic zoning, decided together with academic scientific intelligence and with the community – political and traditional peoples of the Amazon. (...) So, it means going down in the territory, 'look, here you can, here you can't', and make a major productive reconversion”. 

● Felipe D'Avila: “We need to focus on a State plan to make Brazil the first big zero carbon economy in the world. It's in my government plan and we have a plan to do it. Just to let you have an idea, today, 80% of the emission of greenhouse gases in the world is due to fossil energy emissions. In Brazil, it results from bad use of the soil. (...) The first thing we have to do for Brazil to be this zero carbon nation is to plant trees on degraded land. (...) Second important point that we have to make here: it is more solid State presence, ‘more State’ to fight deforestation. It is unbelievable that a country like Brazil is deforesting more than 8 thousand km². (...) Therefore, we do have to fight deforestation, we have to invest in this issue of forestry. And finally, using the full potential of the Amazon to focus on its local economic vocation. Its local economic vocation is what I call the green economy. It's the green job.”

● Jair Bolsonaro: “In Canada, the indigenous people who have their land demarcated, they produce. If you enter an indigenous land in Canada, no one would say it is an indigenous land, no one will know, because everything is similar, as a whole. We want Brazil to start acting in the same way. That's why, at the beginning of last year, we proposed a draft bill granting autonomy to the indigenous people to explore their land, in the same way that a neighbor farmer does, next to this indigenous land. This freedom is what we are giving to our brothers. And, nowadays, there is already a very large percentage of indigenous people who are working on their properties, like the Parecis in Mato Grosso. And we want to do it all over Brazil. Obviously, I want to make this very clear, that in the bill, if one day it becomes a law, the indigenous will have autonomy over their land. It will only be exploited if the community so desires”.

● Lula: “The environmental is crucial because rural producers, who are professionals, who are committed to this country and who want to continue selling their products abroad, know that we need to combine our productive potential with our environmental preservation capacity. Brazil does not need to cut down a tree. Brazil has degraded, abandoned lands, which can be recovered to explore whatever desired, raising cattle, planting soybean or corn without hurting the forest. People have to understand that, if we invest correctly in research, the biodiversity produced by the Amazon ecosystem can allow us to make it a source of enrichment for the people of the Amazon region. Brazil needs to stop being ignorant. The government cannot avoid admiting we can use our biodiversity to improve people’s lives.” 

 ● Simone Tebet: “No one is going to invest in Brazil – a country that has a distorted view, one that does not comply with environmental rules. So, we do have to preserve the Amazon, but with responsibility, I reaffirm. We know that one of the worst HDIs (Human Development Index) is in the Legal Amazon, it means, one of the lowest human development indices. But it is possible to transform the forest into something that provides life quality for people – and  it won’t happen by cutting down the forests. It will be possible through the preservation of  the forests and exploring the best they have to offer – açaí is an example of this, cocoa is another example, the fish, which the mighty rivers of the legal Amazon are able to provide, everything with sustainability, with rationality. What we can't tolerate is half a dozen illegal miners, half a dozen land grabbers, who invade, destroy the environment, destroy the image of the states of the Legal Amazon and also destroy the image of Brazilian agribusiness that is serious.” 

● Soraya Thronicke: “For an adequate preservation to become possible, we need to replan the entire process and start by land tenure regularization so that we can separate the wheat from the chaff. The areas, duly titled, only in them it is possible to identify who is responsible and put an end to illegal deforestation, separating those who produce illegally from those who produce legally and hold these people accountable. But those in good faith must be able to produce. The point is to stimulate the bioeconomy and the implementation of forest management plans, so that the forest is an economic asset. And reduce all the pressure of illegal deforestation. And, keeping this forest standing, allowing them to produce in these forests, respecting the biome, in short, we need to give this incentive and certain incentives were cut from the government, I mean, from the current government's budget. This is a very serious problem.”

Demarcation of territories and illegal mining in indigenous lands

The issue of traditional peoples was also frequently mentioned in interviews with candidates for the Presidency of Brazil. The focal point was the situation of indigenous peoples, who have been constant targets and whose coveted lands suffer progressive intrusions and exploitation, especially actions related to predatory fishing activities and illegal mining. Below are some of the points highlighted by the presidential candidates: 

● Ciro Gomes: “there is a serious problem of finding the balance between sensitive mineral occurrences in a conservation unit, or, and especially, in protection units of traditional populations. I visited, many years ago, the Cinta Largas’ community, in Rondônia. There, there is diamond occurrence and it was an absolutely shocking thing: you found a diamond stone worth, you know, thousands of reais and suddenly, because it was inside an indigenous unit, you couldn't explore it. As a result, the Cinta Largas, themselves, ended up being victimized by a process of exploitation, of smuggling, and Brazil did not manage that.”

● Felipe D'Avila: “The first thing we need to do: land demarcation – we have to finish this. Secondly, they have to decide their future themselves. They have to choose. We have a habit of interfering with indigenous peoples, creating “two hundred” institutions, NGOs, the government, everyone speaking on their behalf. But they have to speak on their behalf. We have to understand the indigenous people, as responsible people, who understand, better than anyone else, what is best for them. So, the exploration of sustainable activities is something fundamental, they should decide and we shouldn’t decide. It is necessary, of course, after they decide that they want a certain activity - even legal mining, not illegal mining -, or the exploitation of other activities, a regulation, a law, in case of mining, authorization from the National Congress, but they are the ones who should be heard.” 

● Jair Bolsonaro: “The Amazon region shelters almost 30 million Brazilians. We cannot leave these people to their own devices. From 1992 on, there was a great race, known here as the 'indigenous land demarcation industry'. There is almost no indigenous land on poor soil and subsoil, everything is due to interests. For example, there, at the mouth of the Madeira River, there are very rich areas in potassium - a mineral we almost fully import, and it is essential for our agribusiness. Since the beginning of last year, after our project to allow the indigenous peoples to explore their property if they desire so, it will provide us self-sufficiency in this (sic), which is essential for our agriculture. However, this indigenous land demarcation industry was not born in Brazil, it comes from outside to inside. That is, important countries that compete with Brazil on the issue of agribusiness, for example, have interests - via their NGOs, of working here in Brazil so that we are not able to evolve. And they make an intense negative campaign against Brazil.”

● Lula: “We have to build a new Brazil. And building a new Brazil, in 2023, means putting the environmental agenda in any discussion concerning administration, development and investment in Brazil. This is a commitment of my party, it is a commitment that I have with the people who battle, who fight and who die defending the environmental issue. There's no such thing as 'let's destroy the fence'. There’s no such thing as ‘we’re going to invade indigenous lands for mining’. No.  We are going to protect indigenous lands and there will no longer be the assault that mining is causing to indigenous lands in Brazil, as I just told you, about the Tapajós River. I have already had the pleasure of swimming in the blue waters of the Tapajós River, I cannot conceive the idea that water is now muddy, I cannot conceive the idea that water is receiving mercury. It's not possible." 

● Simone Tebet: “(Concerning the bill that authorizes mining in indigenous lands) If we approve this bill, just to give you an idea, I think there are two things we need to point out: the first is that Pará and the states of the Legal Amazon correspond to 60% of the size of Brazil, so there is a lot of area there that is not indigenous reserve area. Second, they want to use this to say the following: 'we need potassium to use it in the plantation'. I know agribusiness pretty well because I am from 'the interior of the interior' of Brazil (...). I can assure you that fertilizer is important indeed, we do need fertilizer, otherwise there is no food on the table - but most of the potassium in Brazil is not within the legal reserves. This is just an excuse to start illegal mining in indigenous villages”. 

● Soraya Thronicke: “About 13% of the national territory has already been allotted for indigenous people and we have approved that. We elected a National Constituent Assembly and approved it. The time frame is in the Constitution, so I don't understand why discuss it again. There, there is no illegality, there is, in fact, constitutionality in relation to the time frame. We have to respect, above all, our Constitution. And, rather than increasing the territory more and more, we have to look at the living conditions of these people. Therefore, we have to accompany them in their development, so that they can produce there on their lands in a sustainable, legal way and that they can prosper. That's fundamental. It is useless to increase the demarcation of indigenous lands and this group of the population remains in a situation of misery. This is unacceptable, it makes no sense, it is contradictory. So, why discuss it if they can't even prosper on what they already have?"

About the interviews with the presidential candidates

 All the interviews given by the candidates are available at Liberal Group Youtube channel.

The interviews were carried out at the beginning of the year, when the candidates were not yet officially announced, other pre-candidates were included and the questions explored more the expectations in the face of the political scenario that was being set. The interviews on the “Proposals for the Amazon” project, in September, were conducted considering the best-placed candidates in the electoral polls. Topics such as drug trafficking, infrastructure, health, education and the Amazon Fund, among other subjects, were also addressed in the interviews, which, on average, lasted one hour.

By means of the Amazônia Check Project, a partnership between the Liberal Group and “Jogo Limpo” program, from YouTube Brazil, you also have access to specialized and journalistic checks on topics related to the Amazon addressed by presidential candidates in videos shown during the electoral campaign. The link to the Project is also available at www.oliberal.com