[Photo credit: Grist / MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP via Getty Images]
By Diego Viana
On January 1st, 2023, when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked up the ramp of the presidential palace to begin his third term as President of Brazil, he was accompanied by eight people who represented the diversity of the country's population. Among them was Raoni Metuktire, chief and spokesperson of the Mẽbêngôkre people of Northern Brazil (popularly known as “Kayapó”), who achieved international fame in 1989, when rockstar Sting took him on a world tour in defense of the Amazon rainforest.
The display of diversity was a response to four years of a far-right, nationalist government that trampled over the rights of women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and indigenous peoples especially. The new government began in a context of shock, in the country and abroad, over former president Jair Bolsonaro's open support of illegal miners who invaded the lands of the Yanomami people in the Amazon, poisoned their streams with mercury, and suppressed any attempt at resistance. The federal government knew about the spread of famine and diseases among the Yanomami and openly chose not to act.
For many on the Left, seeing Lula and Raoni hold hands brought hope. First and foremost, it felt like a whiff of reconciliation, after approximately ten years of estrangement. Like other social movements, indigenous rights activists felt that the Brazilian Left had betrayed them and given its support to the old hegemonic project of occupying the Amazon through cattle rearing, mining, and building inefficient and expensive hydroelectric power plants. On the other hand, Lula's first stint as President (2003-2010) was successful in reducing Amazon deforestation, especially after worrisome data presented in 2002 revealed that deforestation had cleared over 28,000 square kilometers.
Largely due to the efforts of the Minister of Environment, activist Marina Silva, deforestation fell continuously until 2011 — three years after she left her post. The government also, in accordance with the 1988 Constitution, helped restore the rights of indigenous Brazilians over their historical lands. The military reacted grudgingly, alleging that this would undermine national sovereignty. The agribusiness sector, who had their eyes on large tracts of land in the region, in turn responded by creating a "milestone thesis," according to which only the lands indeed occupied by indigenous groups in 1988 should be recognized. The Supreme Court is yet to judge the validity of this thesis.
The same period was nonetheless a time when a series of ambitious engineering projects in the Amazon, first developed as part of a national-developmentalist ideology held by the military dictatorship in the 1970s, were put forward, so as to favor a handful of monopolistic companies and the advance of agribusiness. Among these projects, the Belo Monte dam, built between 2010 and 2016 at an estimated cost of 40 billion Brazilian reals (roughly $8 billion), is probably the most well-known and also the most deleterious. Against continuous and vocal opposition from environmentalists and indigenous activists, these projects were accelerated under Lula's successor, Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), also from the Workers' Party. Around 2012 or 2013, the president of the Workers' Party, Gleisi Hoffman, who still occupies that post today, referred to the indigenous and environmental activists who were fighting against Belo Monte as “minorities with unrealistic ideological projects.”
Representatives of agribusiness progressively assumed key positions in Rousseff's government. This culminated in the appointment of a landowner, Senator Kátia Abreu, as Minister of Agriculture in 2015. Abreu, who owns multiple large farms in the central plains of Brazil, was by then already known to her critics as "Miss Deforestation," with Greenpeace and other NGOs awarding her a satirical golden chainsaw trophy in 2009. In 2013, during a cattle auction aimed at raising funds for the expansion of what was dubbed “private security” for farmers, meaning armed groups historically known for massacres of the local indigenous and landless peoples, she echoed the Wannsee Conference by promising to find a solution to “the indigenous question.” The episode is portrayed in detail in the film Martírio, directed by Vincent Carelli.
Unsurprisingly, soy producers interpreted Abreu’s appointment as free rein to invade Guarani-Kaiowá lands in the Center-Western state of Mato Grosso do Sul. They proceeded accordingly, engaging in their usual displays of gun violence and neglect of indigenous health tantamount to biological warfare. It is remarkable how these tactics mirror those of the colonizers from centuries past. Since the 16th century, land grabbers eliminated indigenous settlements by distributing clothes and toys infected with smallpox and other diseases.
The anti-environmental policies culminating in the construction of Belo Monte distanced much of the Left from what was still, by far, Brazil’s leading popular party. Marina Silva, who quit as Minister of the Environment in 2008, ran for president against Rousseff in 2010 and 2014. In the latter occasion, she nearly made it to the runoff election, but was held back to a large extent by a smear campaign conducted by her former party companions. She reacted by announcing her support for the right-wing candidate, Aécio Neves, in a move that might have cost her most of her political capital.
And yet, after the traumatic experience of the far Right in office, Silva and Lula were reunited. That was not all. Raoni's presence in Brasília, the capital, expressed the new government's commitment to advance indigenous leadership. The administration also created a new ministry specifically designed to advance indigenous land claims, directed by activist Sonia Guajajara. The Federal Police, for years complicit in the crimes of landowners and illegal miners, resumed their operations, destroying equipment and removing invaders, aided by the national Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).
One might expect Lula’s administration to further reconcile with the indigenous community by abandoning big engineering projects and fighting agribusiness. They appeared to be starting these efforts in November, when President Lula attended the COP27 meeting in Egypt and declared that “Brazil is back.” He also brokered the return of German, Norwegian, British, and American investment in the Amazon Fund, which was created in 2008 under the management of the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) to prevent deforestation and foster sustainable economic activities. The government's stated environmental goals involve reducing deforestation in the Amazon to zero, eliminating land conflicts, and rewriting the tax code to favor sustainable development.
This is where the picture begins to blur. The powerful landowners of the soy-exporting Central-West region have long pushed for the construction of a 580-mile long railway named “Ferrogrão,” which loosely translates to “grain rail.” It would cut through the Amazon rainforest, including protected areas like the Jamanxim National Park, slashing the cost and time of transporting the soybeans to the northern port of Belém. Another controversial project would allow for oil extraction in the “Equatorial Margin,” in deep waters near the estuary of the Amazonas river.
In March, President Lula's transportation minister, Renan Filho, expressed support for Ferrogrão, arguing that it reduces carbon emissions relative to the current use of trucks. Also in March, the president of Petrobras, Brazil’s enormous state-owned oil company, told investors that the Equatorial Margin project is a priority, though still in an early stage. The company expects $3 billion in investment. Other projects, such as a high-speed passenger rail line in the Northeast region, put to the test a passage of Lula's victory speech from October 13th of last year:
“We will show that it is possible to generate wealth without destroying nature”.
It is not entirely unsurprising that Lula's government is sending contradictory signals, trying to balance the demands of traditional, conservative pressure groups with the aspirations of social movements. There are both objective and subjective reasons for the mixed message. Firstly, it is hard to overstate the political power of agribusiness in Brazil. While the country has undergone a violent process of deindustrialization since the 1980s, agricultural and mining exports have become a financial lifeline for national accounts. As the influence of the manufacturing sector waned, that of landowners expanded. Productivity gains owed to the national research agency Embrapa’s development of a resilient soybean variant adapted to the tropics has turned vast zones of the previously untouched West into a powerhouse of soy and cattle.
Secondly, oil drilling is one of the few remaining areas where Brazil still invests in cutting-edge industrial technology. Sidelining the oil sector might prove suicidal for a government that draws much of its support from trade unions, as the fossil fuel sector is a stronghold of unionization in a deindustrializing country. The government also envisages oil production as a guarantor of energy security, until renewables become the main source of energy — most notably, biofuels and wind power in the Northeast.
Keep in mind that Lula's political profile has always been far from the radical leftist that both his conservative detractors and many of his left-wing supporters, in Brazil and abroad, tend to see. It would be kitsch, but not amiss, to describe him as a master of conciliation. As a union leader in the late 1970s, he excelled at negotiating deals between workers and employers. This shaped his politics for years to come.
At the negotiating table, Lula’s ultimate goal is always to reach a stable agreement. He has never been confrontational and is certainly not a revolutionary. While this attitude can certainly be criticized and faces the obvious limitation of objective conditions, recall that his much more confrontational successor, Dilma Rousseff, was sacked. This contrast should be read as an indication of what Lula's political ability, as one of the most important left-wing leaders alive, actually consists of. With his grasp of the stakes and possibilities of Brazilian politics, he acts as a manager of conflicts, identifying where advancement is and isn’t possible — frustrating as this might be for his grassroots diehards.
Beyond the individual figure of Lula, the ambiguity of the Workers' Party's record on indigenous rights and environmental policy offers a glimpse of the high political stakes in Brazil, a continent-sized country that houses half of the largest rainforest in the world and — at the same time — is one of the widest frontiers of agricultural expansion today. The interplay of political pressure and economic power from both sides of the dispute exposes the aporias and contradictions of 21st-century capitalism with unusual clarity.
To understand how the conflict plays out in Brazil today, look to the government. One expression of Lula's notorious ability for compromise and conciliation is his capacity to translate social conflicts into internal disputes between his ministers. This was the case between 2003 and 2010, and is now happening again. But is it possible to be a conciliatory leader in a country that derives much of its resources from predatory activities and still deliver on your promises to the environment and indigenous peoples?
That tension led to a rift which broke out in May of this year, when Ibama denied Petrobras the right to proceed with studies about the viability and safety of oil extraction from the Equatorial Margin, citing technical inconsistencies in the company's project. Petrobras' president, Jean Paul Prates, who is also a senator from the Workers' Party, regretted the loss of a “golden opportunity” to develop the Northern state of Amapá. The episode shows that, even within the government and the Left in general, many still consider fossil fuels a source of economic progress and think of environmentalism as a hurdle. Petrobras later announced it would revise its application, allegedly addressing the issues raised by Ibama.
All of this took place while Lula was attending the G7 meeting in Japan. Without mentioning the crisis among his supporters, the President structured his speech, given in Kyoto on May 19th, around the problems of oil dependency, war, and climate change. Here is the opening sentence:
“When G7 was created, in 1975, the main global crisis revolved around oil. Forty-eight years later, the world still has not managed to get rid of its dependency on fossil fuels.”
His main point was to rehash the demand presented last year at COP27: that the wealthiest countries should make good on their pledge, first expressed in 2009, to allocate $100 billion to climate action every year. To his domestic audience, in contrast, Lula tweeted allusively about "clean jobs" and "exploiting the Amazon's diversity" so that the region's 28 million people can "work and eat." The tweet was a masterpiece of ambiguity, sounding like a diplomatic dispatch in its capacity to express nothing at all.
This was not the end of the story. On May 24th, Congress took two worrisome steps that many on the Left interpreted as capitulation, especially since the government presented little to no resistance. First, a commission approved an interim measure that, if carried out, would force changes in the structure of government, removing important agencies from the Environment, Agrarian Development and Indigenous Peoples ministries, such as the registry of rural properties, the administration of water resources, and the demarcation of indigenous lands. These agencies would be reassigned to ministries where the bureaucracy is controlled by the agribusiness sector, such as the agriculture ministry.
Later that day, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, passed a resolution that accelerated a vote about the milestone thesis, in such a way that NGOs, social movements and indigenous organizations would not have time to mount significant protests that have so far prevented the project from advancing. By voting on May 30th, Lira would also get ahead of the Supreme Court, who scheduled their own vote on the constitutionality of the rule for June 7th. A previous favorable decision by the House might predispose the Justices.
While these moves were a clear show of how powerful the agribusiness caucus remains, the episode as a whole elicited a swift response from civil society and Silva. The Minister made a speech warning of possible international backlash to the impending environmental destruction. She acknowledged that the country is going through a "difficult moment." Nevertheless, she promised resistance, saying that "good trees grow with stronger winds." Lula, in turn, tried to project calmness by saying — during an event at the Manufacturing Federation of São Paulo — that the political game was only just beginning. Subsequently, he summoned the ministers of the areas concerned for an emergency meeting.
It is hard to predict where these various conflicts are heading. But it is significant that the President has consistently stood by his environmental minister in both disputes. While it might be premature to declare that these episodes will result in victories for Silva, they certainly do not yet represent the defeat many on the Left are seeing.
It is worthwhile to contrast this episode to 2008, when — as Minister of the Environment — Silva lost a similar battle, which turned out to be consequential. Back then, Lula chose to side with Rousseff, the Minister of Mines and Energy at the time, by opting to proceed with the construction of the Belo Monte dam. The defeat led Silva, who was still a member of the Workers' Party, to leave for the Green Party and also resign from her post.
After 15 years, Silva’s position appears to be stronger. What’s changed? The answer may lie in the forces Silva brings with her into the government and, as a consequence, into its internal disputes. Silva's reconciliation with Lula represents a tentative alliance between the Workers’ Party and the emerging subset of “green capitalism,” backed by a powerful faction of the financial and corporate sector.
The emergence of green capitalism created a significant fault line within capital itself. While fossil fuels had become somewhat disgraced — at least until the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict —, “green” or “sustainable” capitalism has presented itself as the sole alternative to the archaic, unproductive model of extractivism and commodity export to which Brazil reverted in the last four decades.
More recently, development projects promising to boost the economy without destroying the Amazon have come to the fore. These projects hope to multiply the yields and jobs in the Northern regions of the country, which would thus become the new epicenter of economic growth, estimated to account for approximately 14% of the Brazilian gross domestic product. The prospect of new fields for investment with potentially high returns has attracted the attention of corporate and financial leaders from the more developed Southeast region of the country, particularly the two biggest cities and main financial centers, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Brands such as Natura (cosmetics) and Raízen (biofuels) have become household names, brandishing their fame as sustainable and green. The owners of these companies, as well as bankers like Maria Alice Setúbal (Itaú bank) and the orthodox economist Eduardo Giannetti, have become Silva's main interlocutors in the last decade and helped create her party, Rede Sustentabilidade. When Lula and Silva joined forces in the presidential campaign last year, these actors were brought closer to the Workers' Party, to whom they are in principle hardly sympathetic.
For Lula, the most important gain lies in recovering part of the capitalist sector’s support, which was entirely lost after the chaotic economy of the Rousseff years. At least some of this has already taken place. In the 2018 election, big money in Brazil sided overwhelmingly with the far Right to elect Bolsonaro. In 2022, the divide was less clear-cut, with many representatives of the economic elite in São Paulo declaring their support for democracy in the abstract and occasionally for Lula explicitly.
If this is so, then the President is currently trying to accommodate not two, but three social forces. Within the capitalist setting, he has to mediate the tug of war between two forms of exploitation of the land: the nearly monocultural soy and meat complex on one hand and the technology- and capital-intensive bioeconomic project on the other. This is the local form of the global impasse of demanding to divest from fossil fuels while upholding an energy-intensive lifestyle based on growth and consumption.
It is hard to assess how much of this conflict is merely superficial, as major investors have no scruples in investing on both sides. It is also unclear to what extent we are looking at an attempt to greenwash capital as a whole. We should not forget that even the cleanest of large-scale economic activities must rely on such industries as lithium, cobalt, and rare-earth mining, or palm tree plantations, where working conditions are often degrading and the environmental record is hardly better than that of the fossil fuel industry.
Which brings us to the third actor: civil society, particularly social mobilization and environmental activism. With the aforementioned vectors of capitalism as a background, what strength do these groups have to achieve their policy goals? So far, there are signs that they are more capable of achieving their aims today than they were two decades ago.
Even during the dark times of far-right government, yearly assemblies of indigenous nations in Brasília called “Acampamento Terra Livre” (Free Land Camp) helped to attract attention to their plight and might have been able to freeze the far Right's project to limit their land rights to the territories occupied in 1988 when the Constitution was adopted (after a particularly harsh period of expulsions and persecution during the dictatorship). But this does not mean that they are strong enough to push the government toward more aggressive action in their defense. In May, the agriculture minister Carlos Fávaro, himself a soy producer and representative of agribusiness, expressed sympathy for the "milestone thesis" in an interview and suggested that the President might also have a favorable view.
Also, the Landless Workers Movement (MST), one of the most important social movements in Brazil pushing for land reform, has established itself as a relevant producer of food products — particularly organic ones. In March, after less than three months of the new Lula government, the leader of MST, João Pedro Stédile, declared that initiatives for land reform were “too slow” and that the movement would increase pressure on Brasília to secure more incentives for family agriculture and organic crops.
A wave of mobilization, including the occupation of unproductive properties, was planned for the following months. Needless to say, the MST is the most maligned entity among the Right, as it represents the opposite kind of occupation of the territory. In May, far-right Congresspeople approved the creation of a commission to investigate the movement, with accusations that go as far as terrorism.
It is no wonder that Raoni's presence next to Lula had such an impact on public opinion and foreign commenters. Yet, politically, the gesture was as pragmatic as ever. Nevertheless, the playing field has clearly changed, apparently in favor of the environment, even if one is justified in suspecting high levels of greenwashing.
If we recognize that the climate crisis runs as two parallel conflicts — one between two brands of capitalism and, the other, against capital itself — it is remarkable that Lula is once again internalizing both struggles in the structures of his government. While the fundamental ambiguity at the core of his politics remains untouched, it is permeable to outside pressure (ie, social struggle), the ultimate source of political change.
Diego Viana is a Brazilian economic journalist. He earned his PhD in political philosophy from the University of São Paulo and covers Brazilian politics, economy, and social conflict.
