ABSTRACT
A few years before the 2002 presidential election, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s wing in the Workers’ Party (PT) made a sharp shift to the right. During the elections he attracted a conservative alliance to support him in order to avoid losing its third election in a row (Arretche, 2013). Yet there were hopes that a post-neoliberal era of environmental policies was coming. The choice of Marina Silva as environmental minister fed those hopes. Silva, born in the rubber-rich forests of Acre, was an iconic environmental militant who fought along with Chico Mendes against the deforestation of Amazônia. However, hopes faded away, as the conservative alliance that supported President Lula in Congress opposed any legislative innovation that could threaten their interests, particularly those of the rural caucus. Moreover, the Lula administration also represented the return of the national developmentalist state, whose project places a high value on increasing commodity exports.
