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

In Brazil’s general election on Oct. 4, incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva finished second to far-right Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was barred from public office after being convicted of planning a coup d’état. The two candidates will face each other in a second-round vote on Oct. 25 as neither candidate won more than 50% of the vote needed for a first-round victory. Flávio Bolsonaro won the majority of votes in eight of the 10 Amazon municipalities that cleared the most rainforest over the last decade, according to an analysis by Sumaúma, an Amazon-based publication. Sumaúma compared official results from the first-round votes with satellite deforestation data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency coincided with a historic spike in deforestation. Lula took office in 2023. Starting in August 2025, Amazon deforestation fell to the lowest level in more than a decade. Novo Progresso in Pará state was the site of the 2019 “Day of Fire” when local residents, many Jair Bolsonaro supporters, purposely set hundreds of forest fires. Flávio Bolsonaro won 84% of the vote in Novo Progresso. In the municipality of Altamira, where the Lula administration blacklisted more than 500 farms for illegal deforestation last year, Flávio Bolsonaro won 63% of the vote. Nestled between Altamira and Novo Progresso is the site of the largest land grab in Brazilian Amazon history. Lula won the vote in two of the 10 most deforested municipalities. He won 57% of the vote in Lábrea near the controversial highway BR-319, which cuts through the Amazon. Both candidates promise to pave the road, raising concerns for more deforestation. And in Portel, an açaí production hub in Pará state, Lula claimed 62% of the vote. Several municipalities with the most deforestation are also home to Indigenous territories facing invasions by land grabbers, loggers and illegal miners. More than 287,000 Indigenous citizens were apt to vote in this election, an increase of 84% over the last election in 2024, but are a small minority in every state. In Colniza, in northwestern Mato Grosso state, where Bolsonaro won 77% of the vote, federal agents recently marked the boundaries of the Kawahiva do Rio Pardo Indigenous Territory, home to an isolated Indigenous group, Mongabay has reported. The Piripkura Indigenous Territory, also in Colniza, is still waiting after 40 years for its demarcation, according to Survival International. In Itaituba, along the Tapajós River in western Pará federal forces have been removing illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory since November 2024. More than 69% of Itaituba citizens voted for Bolsonaro, and 26.5% for Lula. Experts warn that if Bolsonaro wins the presidential election, 95% of the Amazon rainforest will be under right-wing governments by 2027. Banner image: Flávio Bolsonaro campaigns in Bélem, Pará, in September 2026. Image courtesy of Vittor Sales. Credits Topics