How could Brazilian foreign policy deal with the environmental crisis in the Amazon and Cerrado? Invasions of indigenous lands, illegal logging and the rampant expansion of illegal mining have caused unprecedented destruction and degradation in these regions, with serious consequences for the populations that live there.
Since the beginning of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, the Amazon has recorded record rates of deforestation. In the first quarter of 2022 alone, 941.34 square kilometers of forest were cut down — the equivalent of three Belo Horizontes — in just three months.
Rivers are contaminated by mercury from mining; the air is polluted by fires caused by human action. Environmental destruction and climate denialism contributed to the isolation of Brazil on the international stage.
In turn, the impunity surrounding environmental crimes fuels threats and violent attacks on those who defend the environment and land, making Brazil the fourth most violent country in the world for environmental defenders — precisely those who are on the front line in protecting the environment. of these biomes.
According to the report “The Last Line of Defense” by Global Witness, in 2021, 20 of them were murdered in Brazil, most of them in the Amazon region. Such attacks quickly become international affairs, condemned, for example, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Regional Office for South America.
These alarming numbers are the result of a process of dismantling the institutions in charge of monitoring and protecting the forest, which has seen successive budget cuts and a reduction in the number of employees with technical experience in the environmental area.
However, they are also a consequence of Brazil’s inaction at the international level, including in relation to the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Affairs in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement.
The agreement, signed in 2018, currently has 24 signatures and 12 ratifications by countries including Mexico and Argentina. Its first Conference of the Parties (COP) took place between the 20th and 22nd of April, in Santiago, Chile. Brazil participated only as an observer. This is because, although Brazil signed the document during the presidency of Michel Temer, the government of Jair Bolsonaro has refused to submit the agreement to ratification by the National Congress.
While Brazil was in Chile as a supporting player, much of Latin America has already realized that Escazú provides a unique opportunity to deal with three central problems — the lack of transparency on environmental issues, the violence against environmental defenders, environment and the scarcity of sustainable investments.
In Santiago, the countries that ratified the text began to design concrete paths to not only ensure access to rights and protection for defenders, but also ensure that these actors and society as a whole participate effectively in protecting the environment, managing natural resources and promoting sustainable development.
On the economic front, representatives of the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) believe that the implementation of the agreement would help to attract new sustainable investments to the region.
Despite the advances that Escazú represents, the Brazilian government’s contempt for him based on arguments that do not hold up —such as the suggestion that the agreement would harm national sovereignty—, signals that the project of destroying the forest and its peoples will persist for the least until the end of the year.
If the presidential elections produce a new government, it is essential that the incentive for the speedy ratification of the agreement be a priority. In addition, Brazilian diplomacy must assume a proactive role aimed at implementing concrete solutions for regional cooperation on the subject. For example, through a platform aimed at monitoring the implementation of the agreement’s commitments that includes not only government actors, but also actors from civil society, indigenous peoples and traditional communities in the region.
At the same time, it would be useless for foreign policy to advance the agenda without corresponding public policies. It is imperative, for example, that Brazil adopt measures in line with the three central principles of the Escazú Agreement.
First, it is essential that environmental, investigative and law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Public Ministry and the judiciary, strengthen the transparency of environmental data and environmental crimes through compliance with the Access to Information Law and guidelines for transparency of the Comptroller General of the Union.
Second, social participation in environmental issues must be expanded, revitalizing existing mechanisms, such as the National Environment Council, and creating new participatory channels that, among other things, ensure broad access to a healthy environment and the right of free, prior and informed consultation to indigenous and traditional peoples, as provided for in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Third, access to justice in environmental matters must be expanded, including through a greater allocation of resources to ensure prompt and impartial investigations and, ultimately, the effective punishment of crimes against the environment and against those who defend him.
It is equally urgent that rural workers and communities affected by conflicts over land and water have full access to the justice system and that mechanisms to protect environmental defenders and witnesses are expanded and improved.
The advancement of Escazú’s principles at the domestic and international levels offers an opportunity not only to defend the environment and human rights —an issue so central to the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law— but also a channel for the resumption of a new leadership Brazil in Latin America and the Caribbean.
