On the campaign trail, Lula had pledged to put the environment agency Ibama back in charge of combating deforestation with beefed-up funding and personnel.
Brazil's first raids against illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have been in motion, after the new leader's pledge to end destruction that surged under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
Environmental agency Ibama carried out the raids on Thursday in the rainforest state of Para to stop loggers and ranchers illegally clearing the forest.
The agency has also launched raids this week in the states of Roraima and Acre, Ibama environmental enforcement coordinator Tatiane Leite said.
About 10 forest agents set out in pickup trucks on Thursday from their base in the municipality of Uruara, Para, along with a dozen federal police.
They headed toward an indigenous reserve where satellite images showed loggers and ranchers recently at work clearing the forest illegally.
The mission aims to stop or scare off loggers to avoid further incursions into the forest and to issue fines to those caught with illegal wood.
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Environmental agency Ibama started carrying out the raids on Thursday in the rainforest state of Para to stop loggers and ranchers illegally clearing the forest.
Deforestation under Bolsonaro
The Bolsonaro government had gutted staff and funding for environmental enforcement by Ibama in his four years in office, while the former president criticised the agency for issuing fines to farmers and miners.
Bolsonaro gave the military and later the Justice Ministry authority over operations to fight deforestation, sidelining Ibama despite the agency's extensive experience and success in fighting the destruction of the Amazon.
An area larger than Denmark was deforested under Bolsonaro, a 60 percent increase from the prior four years.
Lula on the campaign trail last year pledged to put Ibama back in charge of combating deforestation with beefed-up funding and personnel.
He took office on January 1, so additional money and staff have yet to reach the front-line enforcers.
But Ibama agents told Reuters news agency that they already felt more empowered by Lula announcing environmental protection as a top priority.
Bolsonaro's government had instituted a gag order forbidding Ibama agents from speaking to the press, which agents say has already been reversed under Lula.
Lula took office for the first time in 2003 when Amazon deforestation was near all-time highs, and through strict enforcement of environmental laws reduced it by 72 percent to a near-record low when he left office in 2010.
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During his four years in office, Bolsonaro gutted staff and funding for environmental enforcement by the Ibama environment agency.
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