After a jet stream, the Senate approved this Wednesday (10th) a bill that drastically reduces the size of the Flona (Brazilian National Forest), with the aim of regularizing settlements in the region.
The reduction in the boundaries of the Flona will be 3,700 hectares — the forest is currently 9,300 hectares in size.
The proposal was included on the plenary agenda the day after it arrived from the Chamber of Deputies, without being analyzed by any Senate committee — as is often the case. It was symbolically approved by the senators and now goes to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
This Wednesday’s session (10th) was initially intended for the exclusive appreciation of projects related to women, to commemorate the anniversary of the Maria da Penha Law. The proposal’s rapporteur, Izalci Lucas (PSDB-DF), argued that the text related to the forest has a thematic relationship with the session because 70% of the settlements that will be regularized with the reduction of the forest are women.
Izalci is a candidate for governor of the Federal District. The author of the project, federal deputy Flávia Arruda (PL-DF), will run for a seat in the Senate in the October elections. The parliamentarian, a former minister of the Bolsonaro government, was in the plenary articulating the vote on the proposal.
The approved bill provides for the exclusion of areas 2 and 3 of the Brasília National Forest, totaling around 4,000 hectares. These areas are currently occupied by two irregular settlements, called 26 de Setembro and Maranatha, where 40,000 people live.
The text, on the other hand, states that area 1, precisely the most preserved in the forest, will increase and reach a total of 3,700 hectares. As this area already has a size of 3,300 hectares, the expected increase will be only 400 hectares. There was also an adjustment in area 4, although of little relevance.
Voting on the proposal was made possible after an agreement with the opposition, which resulted in an adjustment to the text. Senators had pointed out that the reduction of the Flona in area 3 was excessive, since the area of 3,000 hectares that would be excluded is much greater than the occupation in the region. Therefore, a device was added providing that the compensation would take place in area 3 itself.
The approved text, however, did not define the size of the area that will be compensated. The compensation will most likely come with the construction of a district park.
Izalci Lucas says that the limits of the forest will be reduced, but recalls that this area of occupation no longer represents native vegetation. “It’s a city,” he said. However, he guarantees that the amendment made to the text will guarantee that the compensation that will be made in area 3 maintains the preservation of vegetation that is not occupied by the Maranatha community.
That is, the boundaries of the National Forest will be reduced, but there is an expectation that part of the conservation area will be maintained, perhaps as a district park — although the bill does not provide for the size of the compensation.
Senator Cid Gomes (PDT-CE) spoke out against the bill, stating that the regularization of invasion is the most “simplistic” solution and also suggested that there may be an electoral nature in the measure.
“I think, unfortunately, that this House adopted the simplistic solution, and I want to believe that it was not for electoral reasons, which is simply to pretend that there is no wrong urbanization process, that public policies are lacking, which is very traditional in Brasilia”, he said.
“I know the history well, there are political leaders there in Brasília who were formed doing this, distributing in the hand, on the chest, in the middle of the street, lots for the population, deceiving the population. And that’s the problem for the Federal District as a whole, because they are at risk, and we have already seen that Brasília one of these days suffered from a water problem”, he added.
According to calculations by the National Pro-Conservation Units Network, with the changes, the forest loses more than 3,700 hectares of area, that is, 40% of its area.
Entities and environmentalists repudiated the approval of the project and its processing in the house.
“It was not discussed at any stage of its processing and, unlike PL 4379/2020 [que também trata da mesma floresta], with a similar content and which was approved to be reduced. In addition to the contradiction, the result is the approval of a serious setback, with loss of protected area and totally unnecessary environmental damage”, said Mauricio Guetta, lawyer and member of ISA (Instituto Socioambiental).
The National Network for Conservation Units, in a statement, recalled that the forest was created in 1999 with the objective of “promoting the management of multiple and sustainable use of renewable natural resources” and the “maintenance and protection of water resources and biodiversity of the cerrado”, and says that deeper debates would be necessary for the approval of the proposal.
”This is a matter of extreme importance and relevance for the environment, which must be debated and, above all, submitted to the order of the Environment Commission (CMA). It is unacceptable that a project of this magnitude is treated as something banal and put down the throat of the people of Brasilia and of all Brazilians”, also complained the Ascema (National Association of Servers in the Career of Specialists in the Environment).
THE Sheet showed in June that the Senate has been silently advancing the processing of proposals with an impact on the environment and of interest to the ruralist caucus.
