Environment

Private sector contained deforestation under Bolsonaro, says federal prosecutor

Mr. Azeredo believes deforestation would have been a lot worse had the private sector not maintained control over its supply chain. Photo: PARALAXIS / Shutterstock

The extent to which former President Jair Bolsonaro dismantled Brazil’s environmental policies, increasing deforestation in the Amazon, is well known — during his administration, Amazon deforestation surged to a 15-year high and an area the size of the state of Rio de Janeiro (17,600 square miles) was deforested in the region.

The situation would have been a lot worse, said federal prosecutor Daniel Azeredo in Washington D.C. this week, had the private sector not maintained control over its supply chain. Mr. Azeredo was one of the speakers at the event “Solutions for Sustainable Food Systems in Brazil,” a partnership between the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute and the Brazilian Association of Beef Exporters (ABIEC), and which The Brazilian Report attended in person.

Mr. Azeredo is a member of the Federal Public Prosecution Service’s Legal Amazon Working Group. Since 2007, the group has used satellite images and public data to hold accountable those...

Beatriz Rey

Beatriz Rey is an SNF Agora Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and an APSA Congressional Fellow (2021-2022). She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Syracuse University and an M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.