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

Filed 1h ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Llaarrss86 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Brazil heads to an Oct. 25 runoff between President Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro after neither cleared 50% in the first round. An analysis by the outlet Sumaúma found Bolsonaro won the majority of votes in eight of the ten Amazon municipalities with the most deforestation over the past decade, including 84% in Novo Progresso, site of the 2019 'Day of Fire' arson campaign.

Lula, whose administration has overseen deforestation falling to its lowest level in over a decade since August 2025, won just two of those ten municipalities. Indigenous voters, up 84% since the last election, remain a small share of the electorate in every state, even as federal agents work to demarcate territories like Kawahiva do Rio Pardo in municipalities that voted heavily for Bolsonaro.

Experts cited in the analysis warn that a Bolsonaro win could put 95% of the Amazon under right-wing governments by 2027.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

You can tell a lot about a candidate by checking who's cheering loudest in the places getting logged bare. The overlap here isn't subtle, it's practically a transcript of whose interests line up with whose chainsaw. Whether voters in those towns are thinking about rainforest futures or just their own paychecks is a fair question, but the map doesn't lie about where the enthusiasm is coming from.

Source: Read the original at Mongabay → Scored: Double Polka · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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