In yet another measure that facilitates the regularization of land grabbing, the governor of Pará, Helder Barbalho (MDB), issued a decree that allows for a subsidy of R$ 6.7 billion for the privatization of invaded state public lands.
The estimate, equivalent to 18 Mega Sena da Virada prizes, is from a study by Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia) on the impact of state decree 1,684, enacted in July 2021 by Barbalho.
The rule reduced prices, which were already below market value, for the privatization of areas from 100 hectares to 2,500 hectares. The average value per hectare plummeted from R$137 to R$44, a reduction of 68%, according to Imazon.
The result is that those who invaded public lands will be able to regularize themselves by paying 1.2% of the average cost of a hectare in the land market in Pará, of R$3,684.
“Charging low for land is one of the incentives for land grabbing and leads to more deforestation”, says researcher Brenda Brito, co-author of the study. “Someone invests in invasion, occupation, deforestation. At some point, the person manages to regularize and sell this land. Or they end up selling it first to those who think they will be able to regularize and profit.”
For the researcher, the argument of the Pará government (and also defended by the Bolsonaro government) that, after the privatization of land, there is a drop in deforestation, does not occur in practice. “Evidence shows the opposite, that public protected areas are the most conserved.”
Brito cites the case of the APA (Environmental Protection Area) Triunfo do Xingu, a protection category that allows private property. Focus of attention of the state government, it is currently the state conservation unit with the most deforestation in the Legal Amazon and with an upward trend, according to the satellite monitoring SAD (Deforestation Alert System), by Imazon.
To make the calculation, the study identified 5,450 rural properties from 100 to 2,500 hectares in which the CAR (Rural Environmental Registry), which is self-declared, is superimposed on non-destined state public areas, the squatters’ favorites. Altogether, the analyzed area is 1.8 million hectares, a size equivalent to almost 12 municipalities in São Paulo.
According to Imazon, the ideal would be to make the calculation based on requests for possession of state lands registered with Iterpa (Instituto de Terras do Pará). The state agency, however, did not respond to repeated requests for access to data sent by the study authors.
The Imazon study recommends that the government of Pará start charging market prices in privatizations, in addition to changing the legislation to end the indemnification of improvements when retaking invaded areas and starting to demand environmental regularization before the issuance of the title.
Barbalho, who participated in COP26, the UN conference on climate change, has been selling the image of opposing the environmental dismantling promoted by the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government. In 2020, the emedebista launched a plan to take Pará to carbon neutrality in the use of land and forests by 2036.
In practice, Pará continues to lead deforestation among the Amazonian states, with about 40% of the total.
In July 2019, Barbalho enacted a new Land Law, which, according to critics, paves the way for the regularization of even future invasions, in addition to ratifying privatization at prices well below market prices.
Imazon sent the study on state decree 1,684 to the government of Pará on December 22. wanted by leaf, Barbalho did not respond, via the press office, because his government does not charge the market value in regularization processes and does not disclose data on requests for possession of state lands.
Instead, he stated that the measure “is an advance to contribute to the land regularization of rural producers and family farmers who meet the legal requirements”.
“The state understands that not promoting land tenure regularization of those who meet the legal requirements is a characteristic of the absent public power and, consequently, encouraging land grabbing, deforestation and other environmental crimes”, says the Barbalho government.
.
