Months away from COP27 (United Nations Conference on Climate Change), Brazil sustains deforestation records, driven by the flexibility and low enforcement of environmental laws.
In the last edition of the conference, in 2021, the government committed to reducing deforestation by 15% per year until 2024. In the first five months of 2022, however, the Amazon lost the equivalent of 2,000 soccer fields of native forest per day, according to the SAD (Deforestation Alert System) of Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Ambiente da Amazônia).
“Brazil has been criticized for having set goals without defining a path to reach them”, says professor at UnB (University of BrasÃlia) Mercedes Bustamante, participant of the seminar Brazil and the World After COP26.
Accomplished by Folha as part of the Planeta em Transe project, With the support of the Open Society Foundations, the event was mediated by newspaper columnist Marcelo Leite and journalist Cristiane Fontes. Also participating were Flávio Dino (PSB), former governor of Maranhão and pre-candidate for the Senate by the state, José Pugas, partner of the resource manager JGP, and Sonia Guajajara (PSOL), executive coordinator of Apib (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Brazil) and pre-candidate for the Chamber from São Paulo.
For debaters, low inspection hinders the fight against illegal deforestation. In 2021, only 41% of the budget for inspection was used by the government, according to the Climate Observatory.
“We continue to have difficulty in enforcing the law. We have a deficiency in the occupation of command and control institutions, and we saw this in the crimes against Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira”, says Dino.
In a meeting with the Chamber on Wednesday (6), the Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, defended government measures to reduce environmental crimes. He cited the increase in the fine for illegal trade in native wood and the operation Guardians of the Biome, to fight fires.
Earlier this year, in a message to Congress, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said that the government sees the fight against illegal deforestation as a priority. Despite data indicating a drop in the use of the budget for inspection, the text reported that the government has doubled the budget for responsible bodies.
The flexibilization of laws also makes it difficult to combat deforestation, according to Mercedes Bustamante. Today, measures are advancing in the Senate that change the Forest Code and may reduce restrictions on conservation sites. One of them is the construction of water reservoirs in permanent preservation areas, approved on Thursday (7). The text goes to the Chamber.
Sonia Guajajara defends the creation of a headdress group, formed by indigenous politicians, as opposed to agribusiness. She took the Demarcation Now campaign to COP26, which guarantees the right to land for indigenous people.
For José Pugas, the insecurity of indigenous peoples affects the private market and complicates the possibility of attracting capital. “The defense of indigenous peoples has to be a well-defined frontier in sustainable investments.”
For him, the sector’s responsibility implies not investing in “toxic” resources.
“The competitiveness of any agricultural product depends on its ability to be considered regenerative, aligned with the fight against climate change.”
