The environmental working group of the transition team of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) plans to change the disclosure of deforestation data and separate the numbers registered under Jair Bolsonaro (PL) from those verified under the new PT administration.
Members of the group have spoken with members of Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), which takes care of data related to deforestation in the country and is responsible for Prodes (Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Legal Amazon by Satellite).
Currently, Prodes consolidates deforestation data every 12 months between August and July, that is, covering five months of one year and seven of another. In this way, the first disclosure of the Lula government would consider part of data inherited from the Bolsonaro administration.
For this reason, the environmental team is considering disclosing the final five months of 2022 separately and, starting in January 2023, starting a new annual cycle.
“It doesn’t seem fair to me that President Lula already includes next year, in July next year, five or six months of Bolsonaro’s record deforestation”, he told the Sheet Jorge Viana, coordinator of the environmental work group.
According to him, it is not necessary to change the measurement methodology of Prodes, but rather change the way of consolidating the data. There is also the possibility of increasing the frequency of disclosures, for example with monthly reports.
“The group is making people think. It is a discussion that we are starting”, said Viana, who is a former governor of Acre.
According to members of the environmental working group, the measure is plausible and would cost BRL 4 million, but the best way to make it feasible from a scientific and political point of view is still being studied.
On the one hand, it would be necessary to update the entire database and review past historical series. It is also necessary to reach an agreement with international bodies that monitor deforestation, for example, for evaluations of national policies in the country.
Under Bolsonaro, Brazil has registered record rates of deforestation, caused by the explosion of mining, the dismantling of environmental protection policies, fires and the action of loggers.
The latest Prodes data were released, late, on the 30th. For the fourth consecutive time, deforestation in the Amazon, in the accumulated 12 months, exceeded 10,000 km².
The number is about 11% lower than the rate of the previous period and interrupts a sequence of growth that had been going on since 2018.
In any case, the numbers remain high —the more than 11,000 km² are equivalent to more than seven cities in São Paulo or one Manaus—, and are especially worrying when considering the warnings that the Amazon is not far from a point of no return.
If it is reached, due to deforestation, the forest could undergo savannization, with the loss of its biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Amazon Fund Update
At the same time, there is a debate, still in its infancy, about the Amazon Fund. The view of the group’s members is that the mechanism, created in 2008, is now outdated.
The group understands that the first mission is to unlock the fund, which ended up paralyzed after Bolsonaro extinguished the two governance bodies of the fund, the Guiding Committee (Cofa) and the Technical Committee (CTFA), which caused the suspension of donations by Norway and Germany.
There are currently around BRL 3.2 billion frozen in the mechanism, but there are indications that this should be resolved with some ease, since Norway and Germany have signaled that they will resume contributions with the arrival of the Lula government.
The assessment of the environmental working group is that, once the governance bodies are recreated and the money is unlocked —which should happen at the beginning of the mandate—, it will be time to update its functioning.
Currently, it has only one form of execution: it is the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development) that raises funds and also decides how to direct them, contracting projects in the environmental area.
“We are going to suggest that this is one of Lula’s first measures, to show that the agenda has completely changed. If the fund was left out [com Bolsonaro]Lula can make a move to bring the international community that wants to collaborate for us to have a fund operating in the first days of government”, said Jorge Vianna.
Members of the group work with the perspective that, for example, it is possible to receive donations for specific purposes or areas —for example, combating deforestation or demarcating indigenous lands, depending on the funders’ requirements.
For this, in addition to recreating the control bodies, it would be necessary to reinforce the structure of the BNDES.
The review of the functioning of the fund can be especially important because, as shown by the SheetLula’s team is already negotiating the entry of new donors to expand it.
People who follow the theme say that there are ongoing negotiations for Switzerland to make a contribution. France and the United Kingdom were also consulted on possible donations.
Another point will be to review the status of projects already approved, but which were affected by the freezing of the fund. It will be necessary, according to people from the group, to see if the project still makes sense, if the blockade has not made it unfeasible and even if the proponents are still interested in continuing with the work.
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