Hundreds of environmental offenders will run for office in Brazil’s elections

In January 2012, President Jair Bolsonaro — a member of Congress at the time — was fined by Brazil’s environmental protection agency Ibama for illegal fishing in a conservation area south of Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Bolsonaro appealed, and shortly after winning the presidential election in 2018 the fine was extinguished. Three months later, the public servant responsible for issuing the fine was fired from his managerial role.

Environmental fines for Brazilian politicians are by no means rare, however. And in this coming election Mr. Bolsonaro will be just one of 181 public officials running for election with environmental infractions against their name.

Open data project Data Fixers, in conjunction with public data agency Fiquem Sabendo, has gathered and organized information on all candidates for the October 2 election, cross-checking them with Ibama’s list of environmental fines issued between 2005 and 2022. 

The findings show that there is at least one candidate in each of Brazil’s states that has received an environmental fine over...