Bolsonaro government’s anti-conservation messages linked to increased Amazon deforestation

Researchers identified 38 tweets by Bolsonaro and his ministers in 2019 that signaled a lower risk of punishment for violating environmental laws. Across 578 Legal Amazon municipalities, they found that a one-standard-deviation increase in exposure to anti-environmental messages raised monthly deforestation by 6.8%. Exposure did not predict local fines or embargoes, which the researchers say points to changed expectations of enforcement rather than changes in enforcement itself.