Brazil just elected a new, far-right president on Sunday, and the event has environmentalists, among many other activists, worried about the fate of not just the country but the planet. Jair Bolsonaro, who has been called a fascist by some of his critics, ran a campaign focused on ending corruption and helping Brazil recover from a long economic slump. He also openly advocated for the jailing of political opponents, exalted Brazil’s former military dictatorship, has made homophobic, misogynist, xenophobic, and racist remarks, and said he would (like a man he is often compared to, Donald Trump) pull out of the Paris climate accords—though he later backtracked on this specific claim. Among his terrifying promises was to open more of the Amazon rain forest to Brazil’s powerful agribusiness lobby, which scientists and activists foresee as a potential death knell for the world’s already slim chances of combatting climate change. Now, they’re bracing themselves for Bolsonaro’s follow-through.

Brazil has been a global leader on climate change in recent decades, especially as a guardian of the massive Amazon basin, largely within its borders, also known as the “lungs of the world” for the crucial role it plays in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. About 60 percent of the Amazon, the world’s largest rain forest, exists within Brazil’s borders.

But Bolsonaro has the backing of political factions that have an interest in the opposite of stewardship; global demand for Brazilian exports like beef and soy has incentivized those who make their money from the ranching, mining, and logging to lobby for decreased protection of Brazil’s rural areas. During his campaign, Bolsonaro criticized what he sees as the country’s “excessive” control of those lands that receive government protection and said he might seek to combine the agricultural and environmental ministries, making it even harder to enforce regulations. He has promised to dismantle state regulation agencies ICMBio and Ibama, who help promote sustainable farming and control illegal mining, logging, and other activities in protected regions. Researchers and even current government officials have said that they fear Bolsonaro’s presidency would declare open season on Brazil’s resource-rich landscape and start a “gold rush” among corporations desperate to get in on the potential profit.

Before his election was even a few hours old, the signs seem to indicate this fear is becoming reality: To the ire of activists, CBC News in Canada ran a story with the headline “What a far-right Bolsonaro presidency in Brazil means for Canadian business,” detailing how Canadian companies could cash in on deregulation. And the worry is not just about land and resources: Brazil’s protected areas are also home to many indigenous populations at risk of what some are not afraid to call “genocide.” An uptick in illegal deforestation coincides with a rise in land conflicts that have turned violent; 110 indigenous people were murdered throughout Brazil last year, according to a monitoring group, with many of the deaths linked to land disputes. Bolsonaro has used racially-charged rhetoric, with statements about how indigenous protection from the UN and other international organizations is part of a threat to Brazilian nationalism: Last year, he said that “minorities [should] either adapt or simply vanish.”