A data crossing carried out by the sheet reveals that more than BRL 1 billion in fines from Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), applied in 2020, remain without referral to conciliation sectors, an additional step created by the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government to weaken environmental enforcement.
The report identified 647 infraction notices with fines exceeding R$ 200 thousand each and without referral to environmental conciliation in the following two years. These fines add up to BRL 1,017,526,000.00.
The list has 28 loggers fined for illegal logging in the Amazon, hundreds of deforesters in the Amazon biome, two steel mills, a railroad and a state-owned company – Furnas, a subsidiary of Eletrobras – that can benefit from the statute of limitations on fines.
Among the assessments without conciliation, the largest individual fine applied is R$ 46.3 million, referring to the exploration of an embargoed area in the Amazon. Sought after, IBAMA and the MMA (Ministry of the Environment) did not respond to questions in the report.
The cut-off used was 2020 because Ibama, in a document dated November 26, 2021, pointed to the risk of prescription of more than 5,000 infraction notices drawn up that year, the second of Bolsonaro’s term. This represents almost half of the fines imposed in 2020.
Information on the risk of prescription was revealed by Folha on the 13th.
Bolsonaro and his then Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, edited a decree in April 2019 in which they instituted environmental conciliation. Salles left office in June 2021, amid the PF investigation into his participation in an alleged scheme to facilitate the smuggling of wood from the Amazon.
The fines imposed by the inspectors must be forwarded to conciliation hearings, and the processes can be closed based on solutions such as discounts for payment, installments or conversion of the fine into some environmental service.
After the tax assessment was issued, conciliation became a first step in the process, according to members of Ibama. Fines of less than R$500,000 are dealt with by state superintendencies. Cases worth R$ 500,000 or more are forwarded to the headquarters in BrasÃlia. While these hearings do not take place, there is a backlog of cases.
IBAMA sources interviewed by the report on condition of anonymity say that the risk of prescription falls especially on processes that have not yet passed through conciliation. There is a backlog of infraction notices, with a real risk of prescription, which occurs when punishment is no longer possible due to the loss of procedural deadlines.
The risk was admitted in an official document from Ibama itself, signed by the superintendent of investigation of Environmental Infractions, Rodrigo Gonçalves Sabença.
To search for the processes that have not yet passed through conciliation, the report used two public systems of IBAMA.
One is the infraction notices database, which registers 11,000 cases in 2020. The other is the SEI (Electronic Information System), where documents are inserted and procedural progress is updated, like other organs of the federal government.
The crossover was necessary because the original database has an out-of-date status of debts.
The number indicated by the report does not equal the total number of processes that have been dammed and without conciliation, since there is no availability of the numbers of all the records, nor is it possible to consult all these processes.
In all, according to the IBAMA system, there were 8,333 infraction notices in 2020, totaling R$ 2,147,917,726.42 in fines.
Pará, where the highest rates of deforestation in the Amazon are located, concentrates the largest amount of dammed infraction notices: 294 with values ​​above R$ 200 thousand.
Among the cases found, there are five individual fines exceeding R$ 10 million. A single person was fined for deforesting almost 2,000 hectares of the Amazon. Thirteen loggers with illegal logging remain unpunished.
Next appears Mato Grosso, with R$ 164.1 million in fines. Among those charged are seven loggers.
Rondônia is in third position, with R$ 155.2 million. A single businessman, Guilherme Galvane Batista, was fined R$46.3 million, according to Ibama’s database. He was accused of exploring an embargoed area in the Amazon. The report did not locate the businessman.
The fourth state with the most dammed infractions is Amazonas, with R$ 108.4 million, mainly due to illegal deforestation in the Amazon. Individual cases of devastation reach 1,400 hectares.
In Maranhão, two steel mills were fined by Ibama in 2020 and there was still no referral to conciliation: Aço Verde do Brasil, in BRL 4.9 million, and Viena Siderúrgica, in BRL 34.5 million.
“The company is not aware of such a fine, since, to date, it has not been regularly notified about the opening of the process and, therefore, was not given the opportunity to defend or possible conciliation”, said Aço Verde, in a note. .
Viena Siderúrgica said it had been fined for “facts that took place more than seven years ago”. “We understand that the sanction is undue and will be reviewed when we exercise our constitutional right to contradictory and full defense,” he said in a statement.
The fine from Ibama to Furnas was R$2 million. The state-owned company was framed in an article of the environmental law that punishes construction with polluting potential without a license or in disagreement with the license. When contacted, Furnas did not respond to questions.
In Minas Gerais, two cases stand out among those that appear without referral to environmental conciliation.
One involves the Centro-Atlântica Railroad, fined R$2.5 million by Ibama. The company did not respond to questions in the report.
The other case is of a person suspected of transporting 1,459 wild tortoises. The fine was R$ 14.7 million.
Ibama also fined the logistics company Rumo Malha Sul, in Paraná, R$ 2.5 million.
“The holding of a conciliation hearing must be designated by Ibama”, said the concessionaire, in a note. The company says it is open for “conversations”. According to Rumo, the amount of the fine is “disproportionate”. The company did not explain why it was fined. “All necessary measures have been taken to avoid the environmental impact.”
