Day 31 – At Sea

Brazil

Facts and Figures

Claimed by Pedro Alvarez Cabral for the Portuguese, following his arrival in 1500, Brazil is the largest country in South America, the fifth largest in the world and the fifth most populous. It has a total land area of 3.29 million square miles with forest accounting for approximately 59% of it. Interestingly, about 40% of the rainforest is in private ownership. According to World Bank, the population of Brazil is 203 million with an average GDP of $9,032. There is a wide disparity in wealth distribution, with millions of people living in favelas (slums) in extreme poverty.

The Amazon Rainforest

Brazil is home to 60% of the Amazon Rainforest. Unfortunately more than one fifth of the rainforest has been completely destroyed, mainly through illegal logging and mining, and the destruction was greatly accelerated under the blinkered right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro who was thankfully voted out in 2022. Since the election of the current president Luiz Ignacio (Lula) da Silva, there has been a renewed commitment by the Brazilian government to protect the rainforest, which includes plans to ring-fence 20 million acres of it and work together with indigenous tribes who have long been seen as guardians of the forest. This initiative is called the Amazon Security and Sovereignty Plan and targets land grabbing, illegal logging and mining and will crack down on illegal hunting and fishing through the deployment o f thousands more law enforcement officers (www.gov.br). In addition, the goal is to plant 73 million trees and to date 20% of this target has been achieved (see www.conservation.org). So there is reason for guarded optimism.

“We must tell loggers in Brazil that if they want to cut down trees, they have to plant them first… In the land of the Brazilian people, we will be adamant when enforcing the law.”

Luiz Inacio da Silva, President of Brazil