The United States announced on April 23th that it will donate R$2.5 billion to the Amazon Fund, a multi-donor fund that supports sustainable development and climate action in the Amazon Rainforest. The donation is the largest single contribution to the fund and comes at a time when the Amazon faces unprecedented threats from deforestation, climate change, and fires.

The U.S. donation will be used to support a variety of projects in the Amazon, including: reducing deforestation and forest degradation; protecting indigenous peoples and their rights; promoting sustainable development; and fighting climate change.

John Kerry, US Special Envoy for Climate Action, arrived in Brasilia on Sunday (26) and stayed until Tuesday (28). He had several meetings with Brazilian authorities, among them senators, including the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), with the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, and with the president of BNDES, Aloízio Mercadante.

Kerry met with Marina Silva, minister of Environment and Climate Change, and with vice-president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) on Monday (27). On Tuesday afternoon (28), the environment minister and the US special envoy met again. After the meeting, they gave a joint statement to the press. Kerry said that the United States “is committed to collaborating with the Amazon Fund”. He said that the start of funding and the amounts still need to go through the US Congress, so he did not confirm any details.

Kerry said that his country’s Congress is discussing a billion-dollar package for environmental action around the world. “We have a bill in the Senate that has a goal of $4.5 billion. We have another one in the House for $9 billion. It is bipartisan in both houses. But we know we will have a fight to get things through that particular channel,” Kerry declared during a press conference at the Ministry of Environment.

Marina thanked the U.S. for its interest in the fund and stressed that there are other forms of collaboration that will be put into practice, such as the valuation of carbon credits, a mechanism by which emerging countries receive financial compensation from richer countries for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

On his first day in office, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) signed the first decrees revoking or repealing measures adopted by his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. The so-called “revogaço” (a package of repeals) was promised during Lula’s election campaign and targeted firearms policies, environment and secrecy practices involving public data. 

With regards to the environmental agenda, the president signed the following decrees: determined a 45-day deadline to finalize a proposal to regulate the National Council for the Environment (CONAMA, which was strongly damaged under Bolsonaro); ; reestablishment of rules to reopen the Amazon Fund (shut down by Bolsonaro in the first few months of this government) – both Norway and Germany announced R$ 3,3 billion of Fund resources for immediate release; revoked a decree permitting gold mining inside protected and sensitive areas that was signed by Bolsonaro;  resuming the Action Plan to Prevent and Control Deforestation, including all Brazilian biomes to reach the zero deforestation target; reviewed the norms for environmental fines and sanctions, excluding practises that led to impunity for environmental criminals (that were also weakened by Bolsonaro); established the permanent Interministerial Commission to Prevent and Control Deforestation engaging 19 federal ministries, including the Ministry of Climate and Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, Agrarian Development and Indigenous Peoples; the decrees also rearranged the civil society participation on the board of the National Environmental Fund and gave back to the Ministry of the Environment the control over the Rural Property Database (which was moved to Agriculture under Bolsonaro). 

On Monday January 2nd, Funai had its name changed: created in 1967 as the National Indian Foundation, it is now called National Foundation for Indigenous People.  FUNAI is now part of the structure of the newly established Ministry of Indigenous People. For the first time also, Funai is presided over by an indigenous woman, the former federal deputy Joenia Wapichana. 

On the same day, Minister Marina Silva canceled a norm created by former minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles that took away important technical attributions to Ibama’s environmental agents. According to  Brasil de Fato publication, the norm paralyzed Ibama’s inspections and law enforcement capacities. A survey by Estadao media showed that out of 1,154 infractions and fines issued after October 2019, when Salles changed the rules, 98% were not enforced or charged. Marina Silva also determined that infractions and fines must be made publicly available on the internet. During Bolsonaro’s government, the database on infractions and fines were made inaccessible. It was also determined that 50% of money raised with fines will be destined to the National Environmental Fund (FNMA), to support environmental policies. Minister Marina also said that more repeals and changes will be published in the upcoming days and weeks.

Lula’s advisors are talking to the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, and France, in search of donations for the Amazon Fund. Brazil and Norway created the largest international cooperation fund during the Lula’s first administration. Soon after, the German government decided to join the initiative.

Norway and Germany announced in 2019 the freezing of transfers after the Bolsonaro government’s decision to extinguish the fund’s governance committees. Also contributing to the decision were the record deforestation rates recorded in recent years, and the anti-environmental rhetoric of Bolsonaro, seen in Europe as a climate change denier.

The Amazon Fund encompasses about 3 billion reais, and Germany and Norway intend to release this resource with the beginning of Lula’s government in 2023.

The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Convention ended early this morning in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The document with the conclusions of the COP27 creates a specific financial mechanism to compensate poor countries, which are suffering from extreme weather events caused by climate change but have not contributed to its causes. The poorest nations, notably the group of small island countries, have been calling for a Loss and Damage financing mechanism for decades.

However, the usual divisions between rich and poor countries meant that the meeting ended without substantive agreement on what should be the main talking point – how to accelerate cutting greenhouse gas emissions so as to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5oC this century.

“The creation of a specific fund to compensate poorer nations for losses caused by extreme weather events was a fair advance. But at the same time it is evidence that in some cases the effects of climate change are already irreversible. Therefore, on the whole, the overall outcome of COP27 can be considered disappointing. The final text does not demonstrate the necessary ambition to reach the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris Agreement and the so-called implementation plan is weak and incipient. The greenwashing of countries and companies and the misalignment between science and politics have never been so clear as at this COP”, analyzes Maurício Voivodic, WWF-Brazil’s general director.

“COP27 also disappointed in its treatment of civil society and the absence of a Climate March in the city streets is the greatest evidence of how much the freedom of citizens was curtailed by the Egyptian government”, he adds.

A few hours after the confirmation of the result of the 2nd round of the presidential elections in Brazil, the government of Norway confirmed that it intends to resume the allocation of resources for the Amazon Fund, paralyzed since 2019 due to administrative disagreements with the administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

“We will talk to his [Lula’s] team to prepare the formalities and set up a management structure,” promised Norway’s minister of climate and environment, Espen Barth Eide. “There are significant amounts frozen in a Brazilian account in the Amazon Fund that can be disbursed quickly.”

After Norway, the government of Germany signaled its willingness to unfreeze the financial transfers as of the inauguration of President-elect Lula. Jochen Flasbarth, Secretary of State in the German Ministry for Cooperation and Development, said that the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz “is ready to re-engage with Brazil together with our Norwegian colleagues in support of the Amazon Fund”.

The resumption of the Amazon Fund will be vital for the Lula government to achieve the promise of zero deforestation in the next decade. In a scenario of severe budget cuts in the environmental area – which have been taking place since the end of Dilma Rousseff’s government, but were intensified under Bolsonaro – the arrival of international resources can close the accounting equation to enable the strengthening of enforcement and monitoring, as well as the incentive for sustainable development projects that favor the standing forest.

In an interview for Reuters, Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister, Espen Barth Eide, said the country is willing to resume donations to the Amazon Fund if there is a change of government in the October elections in Brazil. “If it is as the polls show and there is a change [of government] in Brazil, we have high hopes that we can quickly resume a good and active partnership,” he said.

The fund, managed by the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), is intended for actions to prevent and combat deforestation in the biome and has Norway as the main donor, in addition to having Germany as a contributor. In August 2019, the two countries interrupted the donations after a series of public attacks by the then Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, against the fund added to the increasing rates of deforestation in the Amazon.

Brazil left the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) how it entered: discredited internationally due to its environmental policy.

Germany and Norway, the main donors of the Amazon Fund, paralyzed since 2019 due to poor governance from the Ministry of Environment and the accelerated destruction of the biome, are waiting for an indication of how the commitments made by the country at the conference will be implemented. Until this happens, the resources remain frozen.

The Brazilian commitment to reduce 50% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, for example, is not only insufficient, but also anachronistic, since it uses a calculation baseline from 2005.

The research institute WRI Brasil reaffirmed the insufficient character of the Brazilian goals: “Brazil reached the end of this COP26 with the same level of ambition that it committed to in Paris six years ago.”

Even with the end of the disastrous tenure of Ricardo Salles at the head of the Ministry of Environment, ambassadors from the European Union, Norway, and the United Kingdom remain concerned about the Brazilian environmental policy.

According to Folha de S. Paulo, the representatives “have not yet seen concrete gestures by the Brazilian government to contain deforestation” in the country, which could hit new all time highs in 2021, and also show concern with the agribusinnes agendas circulating in the National Congress, with proposals that menace indigenous lands, like PL 490/2007, and weaken environmental licensing, such as PL 3729/2004.

Nine former Environment Ministers sent, on 26th, a letter to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and to the prime ministers of Germany, Angela Merkel, and Norway, Erna Solber, asking for “solidarity and collaboration” for the “solution of the Amazonian problems”. Signed by Izabella Teixeira, Marina Silva, Carlos Minc, Edson Duarte, José Sarney Filho, José Goldemberg, Rubens Ricupero, Gustavo Krause and José Carlos Carvalho, the document addresses the high rates of deforestation and burning registered in the Amazon in 2020 – which aggravated the respiratory problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic – in addition to mentioning the imminent collapse of the region’s health system, which had its peak with the lack of oxygen in hospitals in Manaus, capital of Amazonas.

By presenting the Amazon as “especially vulnerable to the pandemic due to isolation, poverty, precarious health structure, and difficult access”, the former ministers appealed for help to the local population through the donation of oxygen cylinders, stretchers, oximeters, medical oxygen production plants, among other equipment. “Knowing closely the reality of the Amazon, the signatories of this letter, former ministers of the environment of Brazil, know from experience that neither the federal government nor the local governments have all the indispensable means to help the most fragile and vulnerable populations of the region”, says the text.

Recently, the French president threatened to suspend the import of Brazilian soy. Germany and Norway, major donors to the Amazon Fund, announced that they will only resume investments if Brazil shows effective efforts to fight deforestation in the region.

The request for help from former ministers to European leaders happened on the eve of Hamilton Mourão’s declaration at the World Economic Forum, in which he criticized the low “international financial and technical cooperation” for the protection of the Amazon, according to a story by Jamil Chad for UOL. At the meeting, Mourão announced that Brazil has resumed negotiations with Germany and Norway to send resources to the country.

In his weekly broadcast in social networks, President Jair Bolsonaro announced Ricardo Salles as Brazil’s representative at the next Climate Conference (COP-26), scheduled for November 2021. Experts saw the gesture as a sign of support to the Minister of the Environment, who has been a target of strong national and international pressure due to his anti-environmental stance at the head of the ministry.

Salles, who took part in the broadcast with the Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, stated that cooperation “in concrete terms” with external agents can only be possible if other countries send resources to Brazil. “The group, the countries, initiatives, they have to send resources to help us. It’s no use just criticizing for free. Resources must also come”, he said, according to an transcript by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.

Salles’ environmental policy, however, led precisely to the paralysis of foreign donations destined to Brazilian environmental protection, like the imbroglio of the Amazon Fund, who came to a halt in donations in 2019, when Norway and Germany, the main donors, withdrew their contributions because of their strong criticism of the policies adopted by Salles, then president of the fund, which is now under the command of Vice President Hamilton Mourão.   

At the head of two key institutions for environmental protection, the Amazon Council and the Amazon Fund, Vice President Hamilton Mourão organized a tour of the Amazon with ambassadors, which began on October 4. Representatives from the European Union, Germany, France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Peru, Colombia and South Africa participated in the visits.

As reported by El País, the trip was criticized by environmentalists for proposing a “shielded” route, concentrated on the outskirts of Manaus, capital of Amazonas State, and the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, ignoring the regions most affected by deforestation. As a counterpoint, the NGO Greenpeace sent the ambassadors an alternative route, including the states of Pará and Mato Grosso do Sul. “A diplomatic trip through the Brazilian Amazon that does not include in its route the challenges and serious environmental damage that the region faces, is an incomplete trip and a missed opportunity,” said the NGO.

To the DW, Heiko Thoms, German Ambassador, one of the main donor countries of the now paralyzed Amazon Fund, stated that the trip does not change the country’s impression about the Brazilian environmental crisis. In parallel to Mourão’s invitation, Thoms met with the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) and the Sustainable Amazon Foundation.

The United Kingdom diplomat Liz Davidson shared her impressions in a series of Twitter posts. She reinforced the importance of the visit “at a crucial moment of the sustainable development agenda in Brazil and in the world”. Davidson, however, regretted “not going to the areas most affected by deforestation and not having had the opportunity to talk with organizations and social leaderships working in the region, which would have helped to conduct our dialogue in a more balanced and transparent manner”.

The visit took place amid strong international pressure against Brazil’s high deforestation rates. In early October, the European Parliament called for changes in Mercosur’s environmental policy so that the economic agreement between the blocs could be signed; in June, a group of investors sent an open letter to the Brazilian embassies in several countries expressing concern about growing deforestation rates.

The Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Resources (Ibama), via its Environmental Protection Directorate, ordered the withdrawal of the Forest Fire Brigades across the country starting at midnight of October 22nd. The order interrupted the work of approximately 1,4000 firefighting agents who work at the National Center for Prevention and Fight against Forest Fires (Prevfogo). In a statement, the organ justified the measure alleging “exhaustion of resources”. “Since September, the autarchy has been facing difficulties regarding financial releases by the National Treasury Secretariat”, says the text. The newspaper Estado de S. Paulo revealed that the Ministry of the Environment questioned the Ministry of Economy about the resources, but did not receive any hint that the funds would be released.

The episode is yet another escalation on the budgetary tension between the two ministries. In August, minister Ricardo Salles announced the interruption of firefighting in the Amazon and the Pantanal due to the blockade of R$ 60 million in the budget of the Ministry of the Environment, determined by the chief of staff of the Presidency and led by the Ministry of Economy. Salles retreated, but it led Vice President Hamilton Mourão, who heads the Amazon Fund, to classify MMA’s action as “hasty”.

For the National Association of Environmental Public Servants (Ascema), the withdrawal of the Forest Fire Brigades happens as “the government  squanders money by ending the Amazon Fund to now say it has no resources”. The organization refers to governance problems faced by the Amazon Fund since 2019, such as the exclusion of participation from society, among other irregularities, which culminated in Salles’s departure from the chairmanship of the committee in May 2020. Managed by the National Bank for Economic Development and Social (BNDES), the Amazon Fund raises funds for actions to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation, and to promote conservation and the sustainable use of the biome.

In this scenario, Norway, the main international donor of the fund, reaffirmed the need for a new stance by the federal government in relation to the country’s environmental policy so that operations can be resumed. In an interview with Valor Econômico, Sveinung Rotevatn, Norwegian Minister for Climate and Environment, stated that the advance of deforestation and the vulnerable situation of indigenous peoples in Brazil is of concern to Norway. “I receive letters every week asking us to ask the Brazilian authorities for concrete progress before reopening the Amazon Fund,” he said.

The Federal Public Prosecution Office (MPF) has filed a legal request asking for the removal of the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles,  due to administrative misconduct. The claim, signed by 12 prosecutors, cites a series of measures led by Salles aiming at disorganizing and destabilizing environmental policies and nullifying legal precepts, such as not using the Ministry’s budget in 2019, attacking the Amazon Fund and firing public servants from Ibama, Brazilian Environmental control agency).

“We can identify, looking at the measures adopted by the minister, an alignment to a set of acts that answer to a logic that is completely backwards to the purposes of the state in guaranteeing environmental rights. This is explicit when we look at the exonerations of Ibama’s public servants right after a successful environmental inspection operation in a critical area of deforestation in the Legal Amazon”, says the MPF.

The case mentioned by the prosecution office refers to the dismissal of three Ibama coordinators after command and control operations to fight environmental crimes inside indigenous territories in Ituna Itatá, Apyterewa, Trincheira-Bacajá e Cachoeira Seca, municipality of Altamira, in Amazon Pará state – the region is located in the area of influence of the Belo Monte hydropower plant. Over 100 machinery and equipment used by gangs of land grabbers, deforesters and gold diggers were apprehended and destroyed by the Ibama agents – a higher number than the entire toll of destroyed machinery for the year of 2019. 

The lawsuit also quotes the ministerial meeting on April 22nd, when Salles suggested the government should take advantage of the pandemic to further deregulate public policies. According to the MPF, this makes his purposes “transparent and straying away from his duty as a minister of the Environment.”

The Brazilian vice-president, General Hamilton Mourão, removed the minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, from the presidency of the Amazon Fund (Fundo Amazônia), taking over the position for himself . Managed by the National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES), the fund has the aim of attracting donations that will prevent, monitor and fight deforestation, promoting conservation, and the sustainable use of Legal Amazon (Amazônia Legal).

Salles has a history of attacking the fund: he questioned its efficiency publicly and refuted reports about the increase of deforestation in the Amazon during its mandate. On August 19th, 2019, Germany and Norway announced they were withdrawing their donations because of concerns with the Fund’s governance. 

Trying to reactivate the flow of donations, Mourão met with ambassadors from both countries to introduce the new coordinating committee of the Amazon Fund. According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the heads of the diplomatic missions pointed out that the main obstacles to returning with the donations is the negative image that Bolsonaro’s government has regarding the environmental agenda.

It was a cold Monday afternoon in São Paulo, the largest Brazilian city, located thousands of kilometers away from the Amazon.  Around 3 pm, the sky became dark and the day turned into night: it was no storm, but clouds of smoke and polluted water vapor that covered the entire metropolitan region. Meteorologists said that the phenomena was a combination between a cold wave and smoke from forest fires in Rondonia and Bolivia. The event made headlines around the world and created a momentum for national and international media coverage on the forest fires that had been ravaging several areas of the Amazon for weeks.

According to data from INPE, 52,5% of all Brazil’s  forest fires hotspots were concentrated in the Amazon region in 2019; the number of fires between January and August 18th increased 82% when compared to the previous year. Environmentalists and researchers associated the increased fires to the peaks in deforestation registered by INPE in June and July – which were stubbornly denied by the government and triggered the exoneration of INPE’s director in the beginning of August. INPE’s analysis were further corroborated by NASA, that said that it was possible to correlate the main fire hotspots with signature deforestation in the region, and not to other human activities such as clearing for preparing the land for cattle or crops. 

When asked about the crisis, president Bolsonaro chose to (again) blame NGOs. Referring to the cuts on Fundo Amazônia, he said: “Crime exists and we need to do what we can to  reduce this crime, but we took money away from NGOs. From  the international donations, we took 40% that would go to NGOs (…) We also cut  the public funding. So these people  are missing the money. ” He continued: “So there might be happening, it might, I am not affirming, criminal activity by these NGO guys to get negative attention against me personally, and against the government of Brazil. This is the war we have to fight”. The president said that his ‘feeling’ is that the criminal forest fires intend to generate dramatic images to the international audience.. “It seems  the fire  was  set in strategic places, all over the  Amazon. How is that possible? Not even you would be able to be everywhere setting the forest on fire to film and broadcast to  the world. All indicates that these people went there to film and set the fire. This is my feeling”. On social media, minister Ricardo Salles said the increase in forest  fires was a result of dry weather,  heat  and wind.

On the 21st, Ibama published an announcement to buy a new monitoring system for Amazon. The Planet system, from the USA, is expected to be chosen. Since the beginning of the year, Salles and Bolsonaro clashed with Inpe’s system, claimed the data was “fake” and exonerated the institute’s president, Ricardo Galvão. Salles has always advocated for a private monitoring system

After months of public attacks on the governance of Fundo Amazônia and due to the steep increase of Amazon deforestation in June and July, Germany’s Ministry of the Environment suspended the country’s contribution to Fundo  Amazônia. “The policies of the Brazilian government make us doubtful if they are still searching for a  consequent reduction of deforestation rates. Only when there is clarity, we will be able to continue cooperating with projects  in the region.”, the German government said on August 10th. 

A few days later, Nordic media reported that the  Norwegian government was also  withdrawing donations to Fundo Amazônia due to problems with the governance of the fund. According to the press, Norway was withholding the payment of R$ 132.6 million; the country is the main donor for Fundo Amazônia, accounting for 93,8% of total resources between 2009 and 2018.

In response to the Norway announcement, president Bolsonaro used irony. He said “Isn’t Norway that one that hunts whales there in the North Pole? That also explores oil there? They are no example to us. Take this money and go help Angela Merkel reforest Germany”.

In a meeting with ambassadors from Germany and Norway, the  Minister of the Environment admitted for the first time that Fundo Amazônia (Amazon Fund) may end. The announcement came after a series of problems created by the Brazilian government since May:  starting two new audits looking for financial irregularities on 25% of the contracts, questioning the coordination of BNDES (National Development Bank), trying to change the criteria for grant making and, finally, in early June, dismantling two key committees for the operation of the Fund (as a consequence of a presidential decree that extinguished several social councils involving NGOs). By the end of June, a new presidential decree reinstated some of the councils but Fundo Amazônia’s committees were left out. Germany and Norway defended the re-creation of the committees, the role of BNDES and the current criteria for funding projects, and said the dialogue with the Brazilian government would continue.

During a hearing of a parliamentary commission created to investigate possible financial irregularities at Fundo Amazônia, prompted by accusations from the Minister of the Environment in May, the president of BNDES said  that the Fund’s Guiding Committee (COFA) was at risk of  being  eliminated, compromising the governance of the fund. The Guiding Committee is a legally binding premise for countries such as Germany and Norway continued flow of resources into Fundo Amazônia. In May, Minister Salles met with German and Norwegian ambassadors but did not reach a consensus; he decided to postpone a new decree to regulate the operations of the Fund, and thus put COFA at risk  of closure. NGOs alerted that a new decree may change the criteria on governance, making it harder to engage civil society on the projects funded by Fundo Amazonia. The German  government disapproved of Minister Salles questioning of the Fund.

In an interview with BBC Brazil’s service, the Minister of the Environment declared that his priority is to attract foreign investors to the Amazon to increase economic activity in the region, including payment for environmental services. He said that the road to reduce illegal deforestation starts by creating economic opportunities for people that live in forest areas. The interview happened as Minister Salles attended a preparatory meeting to the G20 in Osaka. “It’s a way to tell the world that we are preserving but we need to be compensated for it. Brazilian agriculture produces with respect and needs to be compensated for that. Private landowners that keep their legal reserve must be compensated for that and paid  extra in case he  goes beyond the minimum established by the Forest Code”.  He once  again reiterated that, despite  welcoming the  resources of Fundo Amazônia, it’s upon Brazil  to choose and define what are the adequate and necessary environmental policies and practises.

 On April 11th, Bolsonaro tried to change rules for participation in the Amazon Fund, excluding members of NGOs and civil society. On June 5th, embassies from Germany and Norway wrote letters to the government taking a stand against the measure and said that “the government alone will not be able to achieve deforestation reduction”. Both parties have since been in negotiation.