It was a source of pride for decades. But Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research is rapidly losing funding, brains—and hope

_SCIENCE

*by Sofia Moutinho and Herton Escobar

Carefully stowed away in a locker, Evlyn Novo keeps a collection of framed plaques honoring her time as a researcher at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Novo joined the institute as a young remote sensing specialist in 1975 to work on a pioneering effort to use satellite data to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. Over her career, she helped INPE develop into one of the flagships of Brazilian science—a global leader in watching tropical forests from space. For every 5 years Novo spent at INPE, she received a commemorative plaque honoring her service. She was looking forward to getting the 10th one.

But with only 2 years to go until that milestone, Novo, 69, has come to a heartbreaking decision: She has lost faith in the institution’s future and will retire from INPE by the end of this year. “I don’t want to be the one to turn off the lights,” she says.

INPE is in decline, and Novo sees it everywhere. A few years ago, the office lights often stayed on until late at night at INPE’s main campus in São José dos Campos, near São Paulo, where staff and students analyzed remote sensing data, built satellites, and modeled weather and climate. Today, the institute struggles to pay its electricity bills. Potholes pepper the campus streets and sidewalks are broken. They are the physical symptoms of a much larger institutional crisis marked by sharp budget cuts, a shrunken staff, and relentless attacks by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters. “It is a climate of total dismay,” Novo says.

*A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 376, Issue 6596.

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