Brasilia – The climate catastrophe that is affecting the population and the environment in Rio Grande do Sul does not seem to sensitize a large part of the National Congress, which remains adamant in moving forward with bills that directly attack the preservation of the forest.
This Wednesday, May 8, the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) guided the vote on a bill that allows the reduction of forest reserves in states and municipalities in the Legal Amazon. In practice, PL 3,334/2023 reduces, from 65% to 50%, the part of the States’ territory occupied by protected areas. With this, the aim is to reduce the territories categorized as “legal reserves”, so that they fall from the current 80% to up to 50% in forest areas.
The project, authored by senator Jaime Bagattoli (PL-RO), with reporting by senator Márcio Bittar (União-AC), makes a profound change in the protections provided for in the Forest Code, approved in 2012. The vote was scheduled for today, but it was canceled at the last minute, because, according to the president of the commission, senator Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), Márcio Bittar took a medical leave.
O NeoFeed had access to a technical note prepared this week by the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), which warns about the risks, if the PL is approved. Of the nine states that make up the Legal Amazon region, three (Amapá, Amazonas and Roraima) have more than 50% of their territories made up of public domain conservation units and approved indigenous lands. In the municipal area, 93 cities would be covered by what the PL provides.
The MMA estimates that the approval could result in the conversion of around 281,600 km² of currently protected forest areas into territory cleared for all types of exploration. This is equivalent to an area larger than that of the city of São Paulo, with its 248 thousand km², and equivalent to the entire state of Rio Grande do Sul, with 281,730.2 km². The area also represents 31 times the annual deforestation rate recorded in the Legal Amazon by Inpe (9,001 km²), between August 2022 and July 2023.
According to official calculations, the clearing of 28.17 million hectares would also represent the emission of 14.540 billion tons of CO2 equivalent, or more than seven times Brazil’s total annual emission, making it impossible to meet the Action Plan’s targets. for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm), which aims to eliminate deforestation by 2030.
“It is essential to overcome the extemporaneous view that the conservation of native vegetation in Legal Reserve areas represents an obstacle to agricultural production on rural properties and regional development”, states the MMA, in its technical note.
“In fact, the availability of basic factors such as water, soil in good condition and the presence of pollinators, preserved and intensified by the presence of areas with native vegetation cover, is necessary for good agricultural productivity, which several studies carried out recently have demonstrated that Areas of native vegetation close to areas of agricultural crops reduce investments in inputs, such as pesticides and fertilizers.”
The MMA also recalls the multiplier effect that this measure can have in a region that already suffers from illegalities and impacts associated with deforestation, such as the grabbing of public lands, land conflicts with indigenous peoples and traditional communities and changes in the hydrological regime Of region.
“If approved, the PL could contribute considerably to reaching the point of no return for the Amazon forest – a stage in which the reduction in forest cover does not allow for the amount of rain necessary to guarantee the maintenance of the forest itself, radically compromising living conditions and regional production systems”, states the ministry.
In defense of the project, Marcio Bittar states that the Constitution “classified the Brazilian Amazon forest as national heritage”, but that “the defense of the environment is not, however, the only or the most important aim to be pursued by the Brazilian State” .
For Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, the parliamentary stance goes against the facts. “In the midst of the climate crisis accompanied by recurring extreme events, the National Congress insists on trying to address environmental legislation. The number of bills that seek to destroy regulations that protect the environment and climate is only increasing,” she says. “They do this as if there was no connection whatsoever with the climate crisis and its effects.”
Araújo considers that there are parliamentarians who fight for the environmental cause, but today they are the exception. “They want to end the protection of vegetation in fields and other non-forest ecosystems. They want to facilitate the reduction of the legal reserve in the Amazon. They want to implode with Ibama’s resources. They want to transform environmental licensing into an irresponsible push of a button, without submitting prior environmental studies. Brazilians, who I am sure are concerned about the climate crisis, have to understand that their representatives are going in the opposite direction of what they should be going.”
From the Gaucho fields to other biomes
The flexibility of the Forest Code is also in the scope of another project, PL 364/2019, which eliminates the protection of all native fields and other non-forest formations. The text, which is in the Chamber, was approved by the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Commission (CCJC) at the end of March, with an opinion reported by Gaucho deputy Lucas Redecker (PSDB/RS). Representative Erika Hilton (PSOL/SP) filed an appeal against the committees’ conclusive assessment, but the Chamber plenary has not yet decided whether to examine the matter.
According to a technical assessment by the Climate Observatory, PL 364 is one of the most harmful to the environment, because it leaves all “non-forest” vegetation in the country open to all types of exploitation, allowing native fields and other forms of native vegetation to be freely converted to alternative land use (agriculture, planted pastures, mining, etc.).
The text, as it stands today, could remove additional protection from the entire Atlantic Forest, in addition to leaving approximately 48 million hectares of native fields across the country completely unprotected, which means unprotecting 50% of the Pantanal (7.4 million hectares), 32% of Pampa (6.3 million hectares) and 7% of Cerrado (13.9 million hectares), in addition to almost 15 million hectares in the Amazon, subjecting them to uncontrolled and unlimited agricultural conversion.
Gaucho deputy Alceu Moreira (MDB-RS), author of the project, defends his idea, under the justification that “altitude fields”, currently considered by legislation as ecosystems associated with the Atlantic Forest biome, “are natural formations conducive to development of agroforestry activities, especially in the southern region of the country”.
“For centuries, these formations have been occupied and exploited by farmers and ranchers as a way of ensuring the livelihood of their families, while at the same time making a significant contribution to food production”, says the parliamentarian. “Extensive livestock farming, for example, prevents trees from becoming denser and helps maintain the structure and diversity of rural vegetation stable.”
According to Alceu Moreira, the classification of the region as an Atlantic Forest area has made agricultural production in the region unfeasible. “Large portions of land cannot produce, and farmers who plant or raise animals in these areas out of pure necessity for survival end up being fined and treated as criminals. It is estimated that there will be a liability of more than R$10 million in fines applied only in Campos de Altitude in Rio Grande do Sul.”
Environmentalists warn, however, that the proposal, which has been supported by organizations in the planted forest sector, is absolutely disproportionate, because it removes or significantly reduces the protection of native fields and other forms of non-forest vegetation in all Brazilian biomes, not just in the South region.
According to the organization SOS Mata Atlântica, the text, as it stands today, “is extremely serious, as, in one fell swoop, it removes additional protection from the entire Atlantic Forest, as well as leaving the Pantanal and significant parts of the Cerrado and the Amazon completely unprotected. , Pampa and Caatinga”, when an alternative proposal in the original version of the project, that is, without the changes that were included, and which predicted an infinitely smaller environmental impact, localized and with legal security for rural producers in the southern high-altitude fields.
National licensing in check
A third project, considered one of the most serious being processed in Congress, profoundly changes the General Environmental Licensing Law. PL 2159/2021 has already been approved in the Chamber and awaits consideration by the Senate. The text provides for “self-declaratory licensing”, by adhesion and commitment (LAC), in which the entrepreneur does not present any environmental study to obtain his license. The project’s characterization report doesn’t even need to be checked. This modality becomes the rule, covering most processes.
Furthermore, the text establishes an extensive list of activities exempt from environmental licensing, in addition to only considering indigenous and quilombola lands that are already approved or titled as subject to impacts, that is, it ignores those with demarcation in progress.
Senator Tereza Cristina (PP/MS), minister of agriculture in the Bolsonaro government, is rapporteur at the Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Commission (CRA). Senator Confúcio Moura (MDB/RO) is rapporteur at the Environment Commission (CMA).
Lessons not learned
The list of 25 projects that the Climate Observatory called the “new destruction package” also includes proposals that affect legislation on water resources, mining, the ocean and coastal zones, in addition to financing environmental policy.
“For more than a decade, Congress has approved setbacks against the fight against the climate emergency. Given the environmental importance of Brazil, the current package of destruction could render global efforts to stabilize the climate useless, generating the proliferation of climate disasters like the one in Rio Grande do Sul”, says the legal consultant at the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), Maurício Guetta.
This Wednesday, the number of deaths resulting from the climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul reached 100 people. There are another 128 missing and 372 injured. More than 1.4 million people were affected by the rains and 163,000 are homeless. Another 66,700 were sheltered in shelters, according to information from Civil Defense.
A total of 417 of the 497 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul were affected by the tragedy. There are still no final figures on the damage caused, because the damage is still ongoing, but the National Confederation of Municipalities already estimates a loss of at least R$4.6 billion.
The coordinator of the Environmental Parliamentary Front, deputy Nilto Tatto (PT-SP), said that the environmental wing of the Chamber released a list of several bills being processed in Congress and that, if approved, would further increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events, such as the rains that are punishing Rio Grande do Sul.
“There is a project, already approved in the Chamber, that reduces the protection of non-forest areas, which for the gauchos are the Pampas. I lack adjectives to qualify those who vote to end the Pampas, while watching what the people of Rio Grande do Sul are going through. These projects shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion. They should be promptly archived”, says Tatto.
For the president of the Brazilian Institute of Environmental Protection (Proam), Carlos Bocuhy, Congress reveals its disconnection with the facts, by trying to impose an agenda contrary to preservation, with a direct impact on people’s lives and the country’s economy.
“Within the current scenario of climate emergency, there is a need for zero tolerance with those who legislate in their own cause against the protection of life and the environment, violating the non-negotiable rights of Brazilian society and fundamental precepts determined by the Federal Constitution,” he said.
Tags: Congress ignores climate catastrophe moves project weakens Amazon
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