Back during the the 1980’s and 1990’s when Brazil was undergoing modernization, the government had tried to cut down parts of the Amazon bit by bit for economic development. People such as Chico Mendes who was a rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist would attempt to stand against the government. On, December 22, 1988, Mendes would end up being the 19th activist to be murdered the same year. What people have stood and fought for decades ago, newly voted president of the United States, Joe Biden, would stand to help join the cause as well. Biden announced he would join the Paris climate accord and to make environment a foreign policy priority. Biden also stated he would start with a $20 billion international fund in an attempt to stop Brazil from further “tearing down the forest.” His warning would be that if Brazil failed to do that, the would face “significant economic consequences.” This stand by Biden is a complete flip from what previous US President Donald Trump had stood for. During Trump’s presidency, he had withdrawn from Paris climate accord and was silent towards about the Amazon. Now that Biden is onboard, people such as Virgilio Viana, a former state environment secretary who heads the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation said, “There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-win-raises-pressure-on-brazils-bolsonaro-to-protect-amazon-11607346002
Problems in Modern Latin American History : Sources and Interpretations, edited by James A. Wood, and Anna Rose Alexander, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/baruch/detail.action?docID=5743856.