In 100 days, new government could ‘unlock’ Amazon, defends initiative

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The president to be elected on the 30th will have at hand drafts of decrees, Provisional Measures (MPs) and resolutions that promise immediate answers for the Amazon, depending only on the Executive’s pen stroke.

Published this Wednesday (26), the set of measures was prepared by the network Uma Concertação pela Amazônia, which brings together 500 leaders, including researchers, representatives of companies, governments, NGOs and social movements linked to the sustainable development agenda for the region.

Although the shift in the Amazon development model implies medium and long-term challenges, the Concertation argues that the first 100 days of the next presidential term could already set the tone for the policies that must be followed over the years.

“[O início do mandato] it represents a moment of renewal, in which those elected have the maximum confidence of society to implement policies and necessary changes”, says the document. “Therefore, an opportunity opens up to establish good governance and adopt urgent measures”.

The document brings together 14 proposals for normative acts that would have a strategic role to unlock solutions in the Amazon region.

One of the main measures focuses on governance and would create, through a Provisional Measure, the Secretary of State for Climate Emergencies, directly linked to the Presidency of the Republic. The body would be responsible for formulating public climate policies and for national and international negotiations on the subject.

“If the Secretariat has real political support, it can play a role in leveraging the other [instrumentos propostos] and make the integrated agenda for the Amazon work”, says the founder of the Concertation for the Amazon, Roberto Waack.

Another proposal that can generate a domino effect in the development of public policies is that of a decree that anticipates the socio-environmental analysis of government infrastructure projects under the PPI (Investment Partnership Program) to the beginning of the decision-making process.

“This organization of the process relieves the pressure on environmental licensing, which today is the only late moment for decision-making on a project”, says Ana Cristina Barros, infrastructure advisor for the Climate Policy Initiative and a member of the Concertação.

Although the focus of the document is not the recovery of environmental standards deregulated by the current government — something that was already proposed in May by the Climate Observatory, with a set of 62 emergency measures — part of the Concertação’s suggestions includes the restitution of participatory councils, in the area of ​​food security, and also the recovery of the Bolsa Verde program, in the economic sector, which assisted families in extreme poverty in forest areas of the Legal Amazon.

The document also recommends the revocation of the Development Support Program
Mineração Artesanal, launched during the Bolsonaro government in support of mining. To tackle illegal mining in the Amazon, the proposal brings the draft of a Provisional Measure with the force of law that establishes new parameters for the purchase and sale of gold and structures a traceability and monitoring system for the ore.

In the areas of health and territorial planning, the acts provide for the creation of working groups and, in the security sector, the prioritization of the Tactical Operational Program in Public Security, which must integrate the state security systems in the Legal Amazon.

Of the 14 central measures, only one will need to pass through Congress to take effect: a bill to regulate and encourage technological solutions for decentralized sanitary sewage, aimed at communities and rural properties.

The drafts of the normative acts involve sectors ranging from infrastructure to education and connectivity, such as the proposal for a resolution that would allocate resources from the Fund for Universalization of Telecommunications Services (Fust) to serve traditional communities and small rural producers.

“This is an integrated development agenda. Due to its scope, it is interesting and can be carried out by any government”, says the executive secretary of Uma Concertação pela Amazônia, Renata Piazzon.

“Given the immense setback that we have experienced in the last four years, it is unlikely that the proposals aimed at command and control will be implemented in the event of reelection. we propose”, he points out.

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