🌵 Not-so-wetlands

Good morning! Today, we talk about how the Pantanal wetlands are losing their water. And the state of key mayoral races.

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The Pantanal is losing water

The monitoring platform MapBiomas this morning published a study showing that the Pantanal — the world’s largest tropical wetland — has lost a whopping 80 percent of its water surface area since 1985. Proportionally speaking, no other biome lost as much water surface.

State of play. In 2023, water covered 18.3 million hectares of Brazil — or 2 percent of the national territory. Although that corresponds to an area twice the size of Portugal, it was a 1.5 percent decrease from Brazil’s historical average. 

• There was a loss of water every month of 2023 compared to 2022, including the months of the rainy season. The last time a reduction in water surface area was recorded in Brazil was in 2021, when it fell 7 percent below the average.

 Why it matters. In 2020, the Pantanal saw roughly a quarter of its land scorched by fire. But the fire season started earlier and has been more intense in 2024 (as this newsletter explained last week) — a bad omen for the biome.

• “In 2024, we did not have the peak of the flood season. This year, we are seeing a peak of drought, which is expected to last until September. The Pantanal, in extreme drought, is already facing difficult-to-control fires,” said MapBiomas researcher Eduardo Rosa.

The big picture. In many ways, what we see in the Pantanal and other biomes is a problem researchers have warned about for years: Amazon deforestation is disrupting the so-called “flying rivers” phenomenon, by which humidity from the rainforest is transported to other regions. 

• Environmentalists showed that the savannization of the rainforest will interfere with the region’s temperature as well as rainfall levels elsewhere in the continent.

More bad news. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, Brazil broke all records for fire alerts in the first half of this year. Specifically in the Pantanal, the number jumped 22-fold since last year to 3,262 fires.

The state of key municipal races

Brazilians will go to the polls in October to elect new mayors and city council members. Many see these races as dress rehearsals for general elections two years later, even if evidence suggests that the connection between national and local races is often slim. 

• For instance, after winning the presidency by a landslide in 2018, Jair Bolsonaro failed to play kingmaker in 11 of the 13 cities where he endorsed candidates — including constituencies where he had won comfortably two years before, such as in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte.

• We bring you the state of the races in Brazil’s biggest cities: 

São Paulo

Polls. The election in Brazil’s most populous and wealthiest city could be tight. Incumbent right-winger Ricardo Nunes is statistically tied with leftist Congressman Guilherme Boulos (23 v. 24 percent, respectively).

Nationalizing. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former President Jair Bolsonaro have both made efforts to nationalize the race — turning into a proxy referendum between the country’s two biggest political forces. 

• While Mr. Boulos runs on Lula’s endorsement, Mr. Nunes picked a Bolsonaro-anointed running mate: Ricardo Araújo, a retired police colonel. In a significant move, Mr. Nunes’s deputy was announced by São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, a close Bolsonaro ally and a presumed presidential challenger in 2026.

Crime. Col. Araújo supported putschist pro-Bolsonaro demonstrations and was a former head of Rota, an elite police squad known for its deadly operations — a bonafide credential for Mr. Nunes to promise a tough-on-crime approach, as perceptions of a crime surge intensify in wealthy neighborhoods.

Experience. Mr. Boulos also sought a running mate to compensate for his perceived shortcomings: former Mayor Marta Suplicy. The 79-year-old has held multiple public offices, including in the presidential cabinet. She adds experience to the ticket but also is a moderate. 

• Once a historical figure within the Workers’ Party, Ms. Suplicy cut ties with the party and supported Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016. Mr. Boulos, once a leader of the homeless movement in São Paulo, is often perceived as a radical by conservatives, even if most of his ideas would class him as a social democrat in many countries.

Wildcard. The potential entry of right-wing influencer Pablo Marçal (a Tony Robbins-wannabe self-help guru) could make things harder for Mr. Nunes, as he may take votes away from the incumbent. 

Rio de Janeiro

Landslide? A recent poll shows incumbent centrist Eduardo Paes miles ahead of the competition with 51 percent of the vote, which would give him a first-round landslide if the elections were held today.

• Many observers see Mr. Paes’s possible (at this moment, probable) re-election to a fourth non-consecutive term as a stepping stone to a presidential bid, placing him as a “third way” between Lula and Jair Bolsonaro. 

• Once a close ally of Lula, Mr. Paes is keeping a safe distance from both figureheads.

Challenger. Congressman Alexandre Ramagem, a former head of Brazil’s intelligence agency and a close ally of Mr. Bolsonaro’s, is polling a distant second with 11 percent.

Fortaleza

State of play. Congressman Wagner Gomes, known as Captain Wagner, is polling in the lead with 33 percent of voting intentions. The former police officer led an illegal strike in 2011, which brought him to prominence in the northeastern state of Ceará, of which Fortaleza is the capital. 

• Center-left incumbent José Sarto is polling at 20 percent, followed by far-right Congressman André Fernandes — a member of Mr. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party — who has 12 percent of voting intentions. 

• Mr. Fernandes authored the request to open a hearings committee on the January 8 riots. The idea was to use the investigation to rewrite the history of the riots as a government false-flag operation, but that effort failed miserably. 

Salvador

Dominance. Incumbent right-winger Bruno Reis is polling at 64 percent, a comfortable position to win re-election without a runoff. Lieutenant-Governor Geraldo Júnior, supported by Bahia Governor Jerônimo Rodrigues and President Lula, scored just 11 percent.

• In an interview, Mr. Reis refuted the nationalization of the mayoral race, saying it is up to voters, not political leaders, to choose their representatives. 

• In 2022, Lula won in Salvador with 70 percent of the vote. Still, the city has never elected a member of the Workers’ Party for mayor (despite the party having a tight grip on gubernatorial races for the past two decades).

Belo Horizonte

Polls. Leading the race with 25 percent is state lawmaker Mauro Tramonte, a local TV star who was the best-voted candidate for the state assembly in Minas Gerais in 2022. Mr. Tramonte is a member of Republicans, a party dominated by evangelical Christian leaders, and recently went on leave from his job at TV Record, which is owned by evangelical mogul Edir Macedo. 

• Incumbent centrist Fuad Noman faces an uphill re-election battle, statistically tied with five other candidates from both the left and right.

Manaus

A May poll showed incumbent David Almeida statistically tied with young center-left Congressman Amom Mandel (30 to 27 percent, respectively) in the race to control the Amazon’s largest city. Congressman Captain Alberto of the Liberal Party appeared in third place with 15 percent.

Youth. Mr. Mandel, aged 23, has been underwhelming during his time in the House, having not participated in key debates or hearings. He recently shared a photo-op with rising star João Campos, aged 30, the mayor of the northeastern city of Recife and a member of a powerful political clan, in an effort to counteract criticism about his youth.

• Mr. Campos, a former Congressman, will himself run for re-election this year.

Quick catch-up

The government will reportedly issue a decree establishing a continuous 3 percent inflation target. In May, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said such a target was “unimaginable” and “extremely demanding.”

Brazil is experiencing a hot winter this year. A study by a retailers’ association expects the higher-than-usual temperatures to hurt sales by 4.1 percent — as consumers don’t see the need to buy new coats. (Editor’s note: I recently bought one, but it remains unused.)

J&F, a conglomerate owned by the infamous Joesley and Wesley Batista brothers, is negotiating a new leniency deal with the Federal Comptroller’s Office. The company wants to lower its BRL 10.2 billion fine for engaging in corrupt dealings — the fine was suspended by a Supreme Court justice.

The official start of the 2024 municipal election campaign is two months away, and the Superior Electoral Court still hasn’t been able to sign cooperation deals with social media platforms to curb the spread of disinformation. 

The government postponed until next week the launch of the Harvest Plan, the main subsidized credit line for farmers, as the government is still deciding on the size of the program.

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