This. Coming Sunday, Millions of people across Brazil will vote in
the final round of their presidential election. They'll choose between
right wing incumbent gyroball scenario and the man known as Lula,
former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Too many the very future
of the Amazon rainforest is on the ballot news. Our special correspondent
Jane Ferguson, has this story produced in partnership with the Pulitzer
Center.
There are many reasons to marvel at the Amazon rainforest. It is
the world's most precious ecosystem, a natural wonder regenerating
water absorbing carbon dioxide home to untold species of the earth's
creatures.
And from above. It is simply beautiful.
But from space that beauty is obscured so the smoke clouds can effectively
be seen from space. Yes, it's clear. This is a picture from the jurisdiction
or satellite. This is about 40,000 kilometers away, So you're not
talking about something small. You're talking about something that
can be seen from such a distance.
Senior scientist Alberto Setzer examines the satellite images here
at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.
On any given day. There are 20 to 30,000 fires raging in the Amazon
humans encroaching deeper into the forest, clearing it for farming.
If you look here, you see
a new area being deforested. Okay, This was a farm. They already
forced it and hear all the satellites detected the burning and you
can see the smoke plumes in the last few decades over 300,000 Square
Miles have been illegally deforested more than twice the size of
Germany.
When Setzer began this work in the mid eighties, deliberate forest
fires were just being discovered by satellites.
Gathering evidence of it and telling the world says Setzer was not
enough. His whole career and for 40 years he has watched the Amazon
burn.
There was this tremendous out crying. And I thought that that time
Well, okay, we show this is wrong. Everybody agrees is strong in
about one or two years. The whole thing will be settled, but it didn't
happen and still going on.
The Brazilian government began permitting some limited encroachment
into the forest roads were built and trees cleared to build farms.
The initial idea was quite good. People were supposed to live a forest
patch here, so the whole area would would have very long
stretches of forced connected one to another, allowing wildlife.
Yes, everything was very well planned it, But the original plan was
neglected. Nobody was punished for that. And nothing of that.
Has been
implemented implemented. For instance, this area that has been already
divorced it how how much time would have passed when this had been
deforested some 10 to 15 years.
So you don't need to be an expert in satellite interpretation to
say Well, wait a minute. It's not 80% left. Yeah, it's not even 50%
left. Maybe 10 or 5% left.
That was Para state, where the rate of forest fires this year has
doubled.
We traveled there to see the destruction for ourselves. The smell
of smoke in the air unmistakable.
You really do not need to drive very far down the road here in the
Amazon to see the burns breezily taking place right in front of any
traffic here by the side of the road. You can see this farmland is
being expanded deeper into the forest. You see these types of fires
everywhere you go here.
The rainforest has never been more peril. Its future largely in the
hands of politicians come November, either incumbent president Zheer
Ball scenario or two time former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,
known to everyone as Lula.
Brazil's influential agribusiness supports both scenario and his
campaign promises doubled down on his policies of the last four years.
Under his presidency. Environmental laws have been crippled and deforestation
has spiked up more than 70% over the last four years last month,
addressing the United Nations president Bolsonaro argued that his
policies benefited the world
Agribusiness is a source of national pride in the Brazilian Amazon
region.
In the area as big as Western Europe. More than 88 0% of the rainforest
remains untouched and pristine.
Contrary to what is often reported by the mainstream national and
international media, lawlessness by developers has spread across
the Amazon conservationists have been murdered at record rates. Lula
is banking on support from people who care about protecting the Amazon,
currently the front runner. He has pledged to support such stances
in the past. Once in office, those policies have been weakened.
Watered down by business interests, political compromises and criminal
cartels controlling industries inside the Amazon.
Yet these efforts to save the forest maybe the last chance we are
approaching a point of no return. Once the forest is so degraded,
it cannot sustain itself as an ecosystem, says leading scientist
Carlos Nobre. If we exceed the tipping point
Even if we stop deforestation, degradation.
And even if we have
Success in reaching the Paris agreement. Targets for climate change
the the
The tipping point makes the degradation
Process to be self enforcing. It will drive more degradation because
the degradation process increases the length of the dry season. It's
impossible to maintain a forest with longer dry season, so
Passing the tipping point effectively makes the situation terminal
for
The rain forest terminal for the rainforests if we continue with
the deforestation, degradation and also with global warming
The problem is the degradation of the forest.
As it is burned and cleared. The thick canopy that creates its own
climate and environment is breached. This makes fires spread more
quickly worsening the threat. 35% of the entire forest is now degraded,
says Nobre. Roughly a quarter of the size of the United States. This
matters for the entire planet.
The Amazon forest, most forcing the planet. There is a very important
environmental service.
Which is to remove carbon dioxide. The Amazon forest removes
More than one billion tons of carbon dioxide per year and the Amazon
at 1.2030 years ago removed more than two billion tons of carbon
dioxide. So this is a very important ecosystem service.
While scientists continue to sound the alarm people on the ground
like father, Edilberto Sena have for years been a thorn in the side
of agribusiness, and, more recently, the ball scenario government
to
He's not agricultural land.
Is forest land.
So when you cut the forest to plant it's in a few times it's finished
log didn't see full of love.
Those are logs from the forest. Yes, yes.
He is an outspoken critic of industries driving deforestation. He
runs his own radio program near his home of Santarem. In Para state.
He took us to see deforested areas. We just drove by on the road.
There are huge trailer filled with logs.
Where did that come from?
Logs come from here. 7 70 kilometers from here, There's forest. So
the logs and it comes from all over the area because the Amazon is
rich in a lot of the destruction of our territories so shocking,
shocking, But you are very outspoken, pretty dangerous that you're
standing here talking to us. We're in this field, one of the risks.
The risk. I am crazy because in 2006 some two people talking
to each other by by by Internet, saying, we need to kill two priests
in order to keep peace to Santa Fe, one was sent
Few moment I was scared.
Father Cena is careful about which farms he goes near. Now he knows
the risks. Carlos Nobre has a safer strategy, but no less audacious
one.
We are planning to propose a restoration of more than 100 million
hectares of forest.
DeForest degraded.
Mostly over southern Amazon if we succeed
Zero deforestation, forest degradation, one fires and this larger
scale forest restoration. This will be removing
Between 1,000,000,001 0.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.
For more than 30 years.
Very important elements to combat climate emergency. But more importantly,
To prevent
The tipping point to be crossed. After thriving on Earth for 10 million
years, it took humans a mere five decades to bring the rainforest
close to a tipping point. If the Amazon survives what humans have
done to it, what they continue to do to it, it can heal.
For the PBS news hour. I'm Jane Ferguson in Para state, Brazil.
And tomorrow. Jane Ferguson will have another story from Brazil looking
at how the rights of indigenous people in the Amazon are also under