The Office of the Attorney General  (AGU) has allowed the collection of at least BRL 29.1 billion in environmental fines levied by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) to continue. The opinions reject the statute of limitations for environmental fines levied by the agency and were approved by the Union’s Attorney General, Jorge Messias, on Monday (20/3).

The measure provides legal security for the continuity of the collection of fines, which had been annulled by orders drawn up by the former president of IBAMA, Eduardo Bim, during the Bolsonaro government.

The Supreme Court (STF) ruled on Thursday (21) to annul a federal transfer contract of Fernando de Noronha archipelago made with the state of Pernambuco. The assignment agreement was considered illegal by the STF in a unanimous vote.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the rapporteur of the case, stated that the Federal Constitution prohibits a state from transferring part of its territory to another. The contract signed between Pernambuco and the federal government was declared null and void. The decision paves the way for the federal government to reevaluate the economic exploitation model of the island and thus protect public heritage more effectively.

The destruction of an isolated Indigenous land even under protection of a judicial decision led the Conservation agency ICMBio to set up a task force in the state of Tocantins. Federal agents found cattle inside the “Mata do Mamão”, in the Bananal Island, an ecological sanctuary of primary forest where the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal biomes meet. The Mata do Mamão is also home to Isolated indigenous group Avá- Canoeiro. 

To protect them, since 2019 the passing of non-indigenous in the are was prohibited by the Federal Justice; however, the decision has not been enforced. According to ICMBio, 12 years ago Mata do Mamão was double in size in comparison to today – the legal decision aimed to to contain the illegal occupation by cattle ranchers, but failed. The task force has thus been formed with environmental agents to investigate land related crimes and identify who was responsible.

Marina Silva,  socio environmental activist and congresswoman elect, took on her post as Minister of Climate & Environment in the Lula’s government  on Wednesday, January 4th. In her speech, she criticized the previous administration, reaffirmed that Brazil will no longer behave as an “environmental pariah” and announced a new governance structure, including the creation of a Special Secretary to Control Deforestation. This is the second time Marina becomes Minister – she worked the same role between 2003-2008, during Lula’s two first presidential terms. 

She also remembered the rampant killings of forest and land defenders in the Amazon, mentioning the British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. Marina Silva referred to the ‘cattle herd strategy’ adopted by Bolsonaro to weaken environmental legislation amid the covid-19 pandemic in Brazil. “Where there was supposed to be mainly protection, a lot of destruction passed. Several representatives of the National Congress helped to lead all this dismantling process”, she said. 

The new minister announced measures such as the returning the Brazilian Forest Service and the National Water Agency to the Ministry, as well as the creation of special secretaries to: Control Deforestation and Land Use; promote Bioeconomy; Urban Environmental Management and Quality, Sustainable Rural Development and Traditional Communities and Peoples. The re-establishment and enforcement of a national, intersectional plan to curb deforestation in the Amazon and other biomes was also mentioned. Finally, the change to the name of the Ministry which is now called “Ministry of Climate and Environment” to better reflect the urgency of the global climate crisis.

According to the G1 news portal, the ceremony was packed and a projector was set up outside the room to accommodate the overflow of people. 

Lula’s chief of staff, Rui Costa, asserted that the Ministry of Climate and Environment will be asked to engage on the conception and development of projects and policies for the country, with an intersectional and pivotal role in the current government.

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.

The president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) was sworn in and took on as president of Brazil on Sunday, January 1st. In his inauguration speech at the National Congress, Lula included several promises and ambitious goals for his government ‘s socio environmental agenda. He said that the goal is to reach zero deforestation in the Amazon and to promote an economic transition that puts Brazil on the path to sustainability. 

“No other country has the conditions of Brazil to become an environmental super power based on creative bioeconomy and biodiversity entrepreneurship”, said the president. “We will kick start the energy-ecological transition to more sustainable agribusiness and mining, with a greener industry and a stronger small scale agriculture” (…)”We want to reach zero deforestation in the Amazon and also zero GHG emissions from our energy matrix. We want to recover and use already degraded areas such as pastures. Brazil does not need more deforestation to keep and expand its strategic agriculture frontier”, he added, reassuring that the government will continue to secure farmers the “freedom and opportunity to sow, plant and reap”.

“However we can not admit a “lawless land”, and we won’t tolerate violence against small farmers, deforestation and environmental degradation that caused far too much harm to our country”, he stressed. According to Lula, the need to protect the forest is one of the key reasons for the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. “Nobody knows our forests, or is better prepared to stand for them, than those who have been here since immemorial times. Each demarcated indigenous land is a new environmentally protected area”(…) “we bear a historic debt and owe these Brazilians respect; we will revoke all injustices committed against the indigenous peoples”. 

The indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire, 90, ancient leader of the Kayapo people, told the press he was happy to be invited by Lula to join him at the inauguration ceremony. Chief Raoni is internationally recognized as a historic defender of indigenous people and was attacked several times by former president Bolsonaro; he was one of seven representatives of Brazilian social diversity to pass on the sash to president Lula at the presidential palace. 

“Now, we have approached the government and want the indigenous people to be remembered. I asked Lula to help indigenous people and reminded him of the still non demarcated lands. I hope that the government demarcates the lands to secure peace to indigenous people. To my indigenous relatives, I declare I did my part, took the opportunity to speak to the president and called his attention to us”, affirmed Raoni.

The company responsible for the Belo Monte hydroelectrical plant, Norte Energia, will indemnify the fishermen of the Xingu river, as demanded by IBAMA’s, Brazil’s environmental agency, opinion issued four months ago. The company had been disagreeing with the environmental agency and had proposed another solution.

According to IBAMA, Norte Energia has not complied with the conditions established for the issue of the plant’s operation license, such as the adoption of mitigation measures for the effects of damming, reservoir formation and water flow control on the lives of fishermen.

The proposal made by Norte Energia still has no values and contemplates less than half of the amount of fishermen of the Xingu. According to estimates by the Federal Public Ministry in Altamira (PA), there are more than four thousand fishermen impacted. The company, by demanding the presentation of an active fisherman’s card for the payment of the reparation, does not even consider all the impacted people, since many have given up the activity due to the lack of fish in the stretches of the river altered by the plant.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) has begun the trail of the “green package”, the nickname that was given to the set of seven lawsuits that deal with socio-environmental issues, signed by opposition parties. 

In a historic vote, Cármen Lúcia, rapporteur of six of the seven proposals and, therefore, the first to speak, said that there is an “Unconstitutional State of Things” (ECI) in the country’s environmental policy. The Justice also criticized the execution of the budget for environmental policies and ordered the government to draw up a new plan to fight deforestation in the country.

The ECI is a judicial decision-making technique created by the Colombian Constitutional Court (CCC) in the context of the negligence of the other powers in the face of violations of fundamental rights. The appeal was first evoked by the STF in 2015, in a case about the Brazilian prison system.

However, the Court suspended the trial due to a request for examination by Justice André Mendonça, which occurs when one of the justices needs more time to decide its vote. On the agenda were the Argument of Noncompliance with Fundamental Rights (ADPF) 760, which calls for the federal government to resume the Plan to Prevent and Combat Deforestation of the Amazon, and the Direct Action of Unconstitutionality by Omission (ADO) 54, which points to the omission of Bolsonaro and the former Minister of Environment, Ricardo Salles, regarding the advance of deforestation in the Amazon.

In protest against Operation Amazonian Caribbean, in which the Federal Police (PF) acted to suppress illegal gold digging near the Munduruku Indigenous Land (TI) in the region of the Tapajós river, miners blocked access to the headquarters of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity (ICMBio) in the city of Itaituba, in the state Pará, on February 16th.

Criticizing the action of the Federal Police, the mayor of Itaituba, Valmir Climaco (MDB), met with Bolsonaro administration Chief of Staff, Ciro Nogueira, asking the federal government to intervene on behalf of the illegal gold diggers.  In an interview with O Globo, Climaco admitted that his administration was admittedly boycotting inspections on gold mining camps and that he will create a program to monitor the region’s mines and “re-educate” the gold diggers.

The Rede Sustentabilidade party (Sustainability Network) filed an Argument of Violation of a Fundamental Precept (ADPF) 934 with the Supreme Court (STF), asking the federal government to “immediately provide the allocation and execution of sufficient funds” to continue monitoring the deforestation of the Cerrado savanna conducted by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), as reported by Conjur.

In early January, Inpe reported that it only has funds until April to maintain the 20 professionals that make up the team responsible for the daily monitoring and annual balances of deforestation in the biome, at a cost of R$ 2.5 million a year (US$ 500,000).

Considered the most threatened biome in Brazil, Cerrado has suffered the impact of the advancing soy and cattle agribusiness. In 2021, the region reached the highest deforestation rate since 2015, according to the monitoring by Inpe.

The Cerrado savanna biome recorded the highest rate of deforestation since 2015, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe). According to a technical note from the institute, released on December 31, there was a 7.9% increase in the suppression of native vegetation from August 2020 to July 2021, the official period for measuring annual deforestation from the PRODES system, adding up to 8,531.44 km2.

Historically, the biome suffers from the advance of agribusiness and cattle ranching and had many conflicts over land and water, between landowners and local farmers, ribeirinhos, quilombolas and fishermen, a problem intensified with the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president in 2019.

Of the total deforested area, 61.3% (5227.32 km²) was concentrated in the region known as Matopiba, an agricultural frontier that encompasses part of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, indicates an analysis by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM). Ane Alencar, science director of IPAM, says that the data needs to be taken seriously. “This region needs a special look at the conflicts that have become more acute because of this conversion [of native vegetation for agriculture and cattle raising]. The increase in deforestation in the Cerrado shows that the lack of environmental governance and the resulting socio-environmental conflicts are not prerogative of the Amazon alone”.

When heard by Reuters, the researcher stated that the increase in deforestation in the biome registered in 2021 is a reflection of the government’s stance towards the problem. “Deforestation is the most bare indicator of the terrible environmental policy that this government has had,” she concluded.

The Federal Police (PF) has concluded investigations into the oil spill that affected more than a thousand locations on the coast of Brazil in the second half of 2019. According to the PF, a Greek oil tanker was responsible for the crime. “The company, which did not have its name revealed, had its owners, the captain and the ship’s chief engineer indicted for the practice of the crimes of pollution, breach of environmental obligation and damage to conservation units (articles 40, 54 and 68 of Law 9.605/98),” indicated a G1 story.

At the time of the incident, President Jair Bolsonaro and former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles publicly accused the NGO Greenpeace and Venezuela of involvement in the crime, considered the most extensive in area in the country. 

Even though it is proven to be Ineffective in slowing deforestation, the Brazilian government continues to be defend the presence of the Armed Forces in the Amazon. Since 2019, there have been three Law and Order Guarantee operations (GLO)  issued by the government. The last one ended in August. Altogether, the three cost R$ 550 million (US$ 100 million)  while environmental devastation broke successive records.

According to Vice President Hamilton Mourão, the military must remain in the field so the country can present “positive numbers” at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-26), which begins Oct. 31 in Scotland. The speech occurred during the last meeting of the Amazon Council, of which Mourão is president, on August 24.

Only five of the 92 areas offered for extraction of oil and natural gas in the 17th Auction Round of exploratory blocks by the National Oil Agency (ANP) were sold, all in the Santos Basin, off the coast of São Paulo. Despite the failure, the general director of the ANP, Rodolfo Saboia, called the auction “a success”.

The 17th round of the ANP has been the target of intense protests by scientists, environmentalists and state governments, as 14 of the areas offered are close to the vital marine sanctuaries for Brazil’s reef ecosystem, such were the cases of Fernando de Noronha, Pernambuco state, and Atol das Rocas, Rio Grande do Norte. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) considered, via a technical note, “reckless” to include the Potiguar Basin (RN) region in the auction.

The environmental threat was identified as one of the reasons for the low interest from bidders. “The best definition of this auction is high risk: discovery risk, logistical risk, environmental risk” stated Magda Chambriard, former director general of the ANP, to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

IBAMA, the federal government environmental agency, rejected the proposals forwarded by the Ministry of Economy, manufactured in coordination with corporations, which aimed at the loosening of environmental rules to “unlock the economy” 

Among the ministry’s requests are “automatic environmental license issuance whenever there are delays in analyzing applications, an increase in the area of vegetation removal from the Atlantic Rainforest without the need for a license from IBAMA, and exemption from licensing to explore mining waste,” reported the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. 

Eduardo Bim, president of IBAMA, in a letter sent to the Ministry of Environment, declared that it is not up to the agency to evaluate the demands, but to the “competent authorities”.

The fire in the municipality of Alto Paraíso de Goiás (GO), which started on September 12th and has since spread out to the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, has burned about 36,000 hectares of Cerrado vegetation so far. The data is provided by ICMBio institute, the federal agency responsible for managing the park.

The Police has five main lines of  investigation about the origin of the fire in the region and has three main suspects. Among them is a farmer in the region who allegedly started the fire on his property

President Jair Bolsonaro lied again at the UN General Assembly about the Brazilian socio-environmental policy and the reality of his administration. He was also the only G20 leader without the proper immunization.

At the meeting, which took place in New York (USA), Bolsonaro presented an unrealistic scenario. According to a fact-checking by Fakebook.eco, the president said he had doubled the resources allocated to federal environmental protection agencies, defended Brazilian agribusiness with false data and lied about the conservation of the Amazon.

While the president was speaking at the UN, an expedition of the Amazon on Fire Alliance, formed by the organizations Amazon Watch, Greenpeace Brazil, and Climate Observatory, recorded the destruction of the Amazon region with flights over areas affected by fire and illegal gold digging.

According to Environment Minister Joaquim Leite’s promise made in August, the federal environmental autarchies would receive 740 new inspectors in 2021. However, in the authorization given by the Ministry of Economy (ME) to open the hiring process, only one fifth of the vacancies are for environmental analysts, who, in fact, have the legal attribution to inspect the environment.

This is what the Climate Observatory (OC) points out about the Ministry’s decree, published on September 6. Of the 739 vacancies authorized for IBAMA (598) and ICMBio (171), 73% are for environmental technicians, who “can only act in monitoring by providing support to environmental analysts, who have legal authority to monitor and are specialists in areas such as biology, forest engineering, agronomy, etc.”, says the text. Among the 171 vacancies authorized analysts, 96 are for IBAMA and 61 are for ICMBio. The position of environmental technician requires only a high school level and has a base salary of R$2,222.94, while the analyst position starts at R$4,720.84.

Since the beginning of the government, the agencies have been requesting the hiring of more high-level employees, such as environmental analysts.. The deficit of inspectors is pointed out by environmentalists as part of the dismantling project of the current government, by weakening the operational capacity of the Brazilian environmental autarchies.

A survey conducted by the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica in partnership with the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) places the municipality of Bonito, located in Mato Grosso do Sul state, at the top of the ten Brazilian cities that led deforestation of the biome between 2019 and 2020. There were 416 hectares of native vegetation lost in the period, which is equivalent to more than one soccer field per day.

Heard by G1, Fernando Guedes Pinto, director of the organization, spoke about the consequences of the devastation for the environment and for the economy of Bonito, a major destination for ecotourism in Brazil. “Besides causing cities to become increasingly warmer, the reduction of green areas threatens the availability and quality of water. The water crisis we are experiencing today is a reflection of this. In the case of Bonito, the damage can be even more serious, because it puts at risk the tourism that moves the city’s economy”, he declared.

The lower house of Congress approved, on June 9, an urgent request to vote the bill 984/2019, which legislates about the reopening of a road that cuts through the Iguaçu National Park, in western Paraná state. The “Colono” road was closed in 1986 because of the environmental damage it caused to the conservation unit.

The Iguaçu National Park is the last great reserve of the Atlantic Rainforest, the most threatened biome in the country. Environmentalists say that since the road was closed, the jaguar population in the region rose.

An article in the portal O Eco highlighted a study by the National University of Cordoba points that the reopening of the road could lead to an increase in the hunt of native animals.