Brazil far-right presidential candidate wins most votes in deforestation hotspots

In Brazil's recent general election, incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva secured the second position, trailing far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, the senator and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Both contenders will face off in a runoff vote on October 25, as neither achieved over half the votes required for an outright win.

Result analysis by Sumaúma, an Amazon-based publication, reveals that Flávio Bolsonaro's majority votes were predominantly concentrated in eight of the ten Amazon municipalities with the highest deforestation rates over the past decade. Sumaúma compared the first-round votes with satellite deforestation data from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.

The Bolsonaro presidency, which commenced in 2019, marked a sharp increase in deforestation. Lula assumed office in 2023, and since then, Amazon deforestation has plummeted to its lowest level in over a decade. Novo Progresso, located in Pará state and the site of the 2019 "Day of Fire" where locals, many of them Bolsonaro supporters, deliberately ignited hundreds of forest fires, saw Flávio Bolsonaro win 84% of the votes.

In the municipality of Altamira, where the Lula administration had blacklisted more than 500 farms for illegal deforestation the previous year, Flávio Bolsonaro garnered 63% of the votes. Adjacent to Altamira and Novo Progresso lies the site of the largest land grab in Brazilian Amazon history. In two of the ten most deforested municipalities, Lula emerged victorious. He secured...