The House of Representatives approved, on Thursday afternoon (30), two provisional measures (MPs), from the Bolsonaro government, with considerable socio-environmental setbacks. Both now go to the Senate for approval.  The [Provisional Measure] MP 1.150/2022 opens the way for more deforestation in the little that remains (12%) of the most threatened biome in the country: the Atlantic Rainforest. In this case, the proposal was made through an amendment unrelated to the main theme of the MP – the Forest Code (Law 12.651/2012). The idea of changing the Atlantic Forest Law (11.428/2006) came from União Brasil and party leader Elmar Nascimento (BA), who insisted on including it in the approved text. The final text also extends for another year the deadline for rural producers to join the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA), foreseen in the Forest Code.

The other MP (1.151/2022) approved in the House plenary changes the rules of forest concessions, opening the possibility of exploitation of other environmental goods and services, besides timber, including in protected areas occupied by indigenous and traditional communities. Only PDT and the PSOL/Rede federation voted against. According to the final text, the concessions will be able to generate carbon credits and use the genetic heritage of plants and animals, for example. 

The Environment Commission of the Lower House of Congress approved a “Destruction Package” of bills that weakens environmental protection and may increase illegal deforestation, attending to the interests of the rural caucus. They will now head for vote.

The collegiate approved a bill that amnesties all invasions made in areas called ‘altitude fields’ in the Atlantic Rainforest biome. PL 364 allows the exploitation of predominantly non-forest areas, such as native fields, and amnesty the occupation of these areas carried out before July 22, 2008, the milestone in the Brazilian Forest Code.

With pressure from the Agriculture and Livestock Parliamentary Front (FPA), more radical and comprehensive proposals against conservation were included in the talks or appended to the original project. The approved text is more favorable to deforesters than the original proposal, which proposed changing the Atlantic Forest Law to allow the exploitation of the so-called “altitude fields” within the biome, giving amnesty to the occupation of these areas without temporal restriction.

Besides this proposal, two other PLs were approved by the Commission: PL 2168, which changes the Forest Code to authorize the indiscriminate damming of water courses, and PL 195, which weakens controls over timber transportation. 

With a little over a month to the 2022 presidential elections in Brazil, the monitoring initiative Smoke Signal launches “The Amazon and the Future of Brazil: a guide – An examination of the region’s nine states between 2018 and 2022”, an independent production started from a survey of the main events of the socioenvironmental agenda in the four years of Bolsonaro’s administration in all states that make up the region known as “Legal Amazon” in Brazil.

The material was written based on an active listening process carried out between May and July 2022 with the collection of 19 testimonials from people working in the territories covered by the guide. Communicators, researchers, indigenous and community leaders, and activists were heard. The interviews directed the research and, combined with the best available data, resulted in a qualified and thorough report on the region that occupies almost 60% of the national territory. 

The Guide presents an overview of what the Brazilian Legal Amazon is, contextualizing the reader with geographic and socioenvironmental information and the main political and economic drivers of forest destruction and violence. It brings a selection of data produced by relevant scientific institutes and civil society organizations from the region, and a survey of emblematic cases, violent deaths and indicators of the growing threats faced by native peoples in these areas.

The publication also details the movements of the National Congress in this scenario of dispute over land and environmental resources, highlighting four bills in progress in the federal houses and the behavior of state governments and their parliamentary caucuses regarding the so-called Destruction Package, a series of legislative proposals that profoundly change the use and management of land in the country. Moreover, the guide organizes timelines with the main events monitored by Smoke Signal over the past four years, mapping the main fake news and disinformation campaigns related to weakening environmental protections promoted in each of the states. Finally, it highlights critical areas and high-impact projects for the populations and biodiversity that will likely continue to be the subject of political bargaining after the elections. 

The lower house of Congress approved a bill by Congressman Rogério Peninha Mendonça that transfers to the municipality the responsibility of establishing rules to protect riverbanks in urban areas. The bill now awaits the President’s approval.

Congressman Nilto Tatto (PT-SP), who is against the measure, said that the measure leaves rivers unprotected and stated that “rivers run through multiple cities and states, so they should be of federal responsability.”

Over 60 bishops from the Amazon region signed a letter against bill 510/2021, which could change the rules of landownership in federal areas. Known as the “Land Grabbing Bill”, critics say that the bill will provide amnesty to land grabbers and encourage the theft of public lands.

“Land title regularization in Brazil is extremely relevant and requires society’s attention. But, in an emergency like the one we face with the pandemic, there is no urgency or legal demand that justifies the return of a bill which legislates over such a complex issue, since the current legislation (Law 11.952/2009) already aids small and medium producers”, says an excerpt of the document delivered to the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.

Scheduled by Pacheco to be voted in April 28, the bill was the target of an online protest (#PL510No) on the eve of the vote, which was eventually postponed by the senator.

A coalition of 21 Brazilian state governors are drafting a letter to USA President Joe Biden. Their aim is to promote an environmental protection agreement between the countries. In the electoral race, Biden promised to mobilize large investments to preserve the Amazon, of which the group intends to become a beneficiary.

According to the newspaper Valor Econômico, who had access to the draft letter, the initiative “seeks to promote the governors as players that are committed to forest protection, reforestation, and the development of a green economy. Faced with the states’ responsibility to comply with the Paris Agreement, the group wants to create the “largest decarbonization economy on the planet” in partnership with the US. For this, the plans contemplate not only the Amazon, but also other biomes with large carbon stocks, such as the Atlantic Rainforest, the Caatinga and the Pantanal – which had 12% of its area devastated in 2020.

Besides the reduction of greenhouse gases and investment in renewable energy sources, among the points highlighted in the draft letter, are “the fight against deforestation, compliance with the Forest Code for the conservation of forests, improving efficiency in agriculture and cattle ranching, protection of indigenous peoples and the search for ways to enable ‘massive reforestation”, says the article.

In an attempt to justify the oxygen supply crisis in Manaus hospitals by the difficulty of access to the city, Mayor David Almeida resumed his push for the reconstruction of the BR 319 highway and blamed environmentalists opposed to its construction for the collapse in the public health system. “There are people who devastated their countries and come here to lobby against our road, BR-319, which connects Porto Velho, capital of Roraima state, to Manaus. This causes our isolation. This isolation in part contributes to this Covid tragedy,” he told the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo.

In the current emergency scenario, the outlet Amazônia Real emphasized that the road would not be an efficient alternative for oxygen supply. The article also pointed out that the proponents of the work are reluctant to do environmental studies and to meet the demands of Ibama, an environmental control agency.

For experts, the highway represents a threat to the protection of the Amazon and a risk to the survival of several indigenous communities that live around it, by opening areas of forest to the entry of land-grabbers, loggers and other environmental criminals. The BR-319 highway is one of the main promises of the Jair Bolsonaro administration for the Amazon, planned for 2022.

The national parks of Aparados da Serra and Serra Geral, located on the border between Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul state, were auctioned by the Ministry of the Environment and ceded to the private sector. On Twitter, Minister Ricardo Salles celebrated the R$ 20 million bid given by the Construcap group, winner of the trading session, and the R$260 million that should be invested throughout the 30-year contract. “Absolute success of the new model of federal park concessions!”, he said.

For the Federal Public Prosecution office, though, the bidding is irregular and should be annulled. The prosecutors filed a lawsuit against the environmental agencies Ibama and ICMBio, responsible for overseeing the parks, in the Federal Court of Rio Grande do Sul, demanding a more detailed basic project on the concession, but the request was rejected by the court.

“The Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, fulfilled this Monday, at the 135th meeting of Conama, part of his promise to end environmental protection rules that, in his opinion, hinder the lives of businessmen and large agribusiness corporations. And, using the metaphor that the minister himself used during an April ministerial meeting, he ‘passed the cattle herd’ over some of these rules. During a meeting of the National Environment Council (Conama), on Monday (28), he removed the protection of about 1.6 million hectares of restingas [sandbanks] and mangroves across the country. These are areas of permanent preservation close to the Brazilian coast that arouse interest from the real estate sector and shrimp producers.“.

That was how El País Brasil summed up the 135ª Conama meeting, on September, 28.

Conama, a consultative and deliberative council on environmental policies, underwent profound changes right from the start of Ricardo Salles’ term. In May 2019, he reduced the number of council members from 96 to 23. In the distribution of seats, which now is made by lot and no longer nomination or voting, the minister put the majority of votes in the hands of the federal government (43%) and the productive sectors (8%). NGOs, unions, social and indigenous movements, universities and representatives of states and municipalities lost space and ended up having only 49% of the votes in the new composition.

Taking advantage of the control over Conama in the meeting, the government:

– Repealed resolutions 302 and 303, from 2002, which established protection of mangroves and sandbanks, fundamental areas for the balance and preservation of biodiversity; with the argument that the Forest Code already regulates the occupation of these areas. The maneuver removes the only licensing instruments to benefit the real estate/tourism and shrimp farmers;

– Revoked resolution 284/2001, ending federal rules for environmental licensing of agricultural irrigation projects and meeting the demands of part of the agribusiness;

– Approved a new rule allowing the incineration in industrial ovens of packaging and remnants of pesticides for the production of cement, eliminating the regulations that defined adequate environmental disposal of the material.

Before the meeting, environmentalists, congressmen and federal prosecutors asked for the removal of those items from the agenda; a lawsuit called for the suspension of the reunion, without success. UOL pointed out that “the result clearly exposes the way the government started to control an organ that, due to its mission and history, has always had a technical and independent composition”.

As soon as the Minister revoked those regulations, members of the parliament went to court to overturn the decisions and filed a suit at the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and in the Chamber of Deputies. On the 29th, the Federal Court of Rio suspended the 135th meeting of Conama and all its acts and revocations. The injunction of the 23rd Federal Criminal Court upheld a request for popular action against Conama’s measures. The Federal Attorney General appealed and a federal court overturned the injunction on October 2nd. On October 1st, Justice Rosa Weber, from the STF, gave minister Salles a 48-hour period to provide information about Conama’s decisions.

On September 11, Brazil celebrates the Cerrado National Day. The second largest Brazilian biome, the Cerrado occupies 22% of the Brazilian territory and is of strategic importance for water supply and biodiversity preservation. The biome, according to official estimates, is home to around 10,000 plant species, 800 birds and 160 other mammals, concentrating 5% of the diversity of these species on the planet. The Cerrado is known as the “Birthplace of Waters” because it encompasses three important South American hydrographic basins – Tocantins – Araguaia, São Francisco and Prata.

The Cerrado is also one of the most threatened biomes in the world, under pressure from agriculture and livestock, as well as logging for charcoal production. Between 2018 and 2019, deforestation advanced over 6,483 km2 of the biome, or four times the area of ​​the city of São Paulo. From January to August 2020, the state of Mato Grosso lost 1.7 million hectares to forest fires — 31% in savanna areas. In Chapada dos Guimarães National Park, the fire has already ravaged 2,000 hectares of native forest.

A report by the Jornal Nacional published on September 17 exemplified the dynamic of destruction: the TV report accompanied an inspection operation by the Brazilian Institute of Biodiversity and Renewable Resources (Ibama) in the Cerrado region of Matopiba area, in Tocantins. They showed the use of “chains” and burning to clean the land. Ibama inspectors covered over 7 thousand kilometers in the Nascentes do Parnaíba National Park and in the Jalapão State Park, verifying about twenty thousand hectares of illegal deforestation. Part of the destruction occurred within private rural properties, in areas destined to the Legal Reserve — which were to remain intact under the Forest Code. The MPF is investigating the complaints presented by Ibama. According to experts heard in the report, this deforestation affects the availability of water in the region; some municipalities in Matopiba already face problems in supplying the population.

The minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, has nullified his own order 4.410/2020, issued on April 6th, that recognized as legal properties the deforested areas located inside Permanent Conservation Areas (APPs) in the Atlantic Rainforest. The minister retrieved his proposal after strong pressure from Justice and civil society. On May 5th, the Federal Public Prosecution Office filed a lawsuit asking for the nullifying of Salles’s order due to its illegal nature and the threat posed to the biome, which is considered by environmentalists as the most vulnerable in the country.

The deforestation of the Atlantic Rainforest rose by 30%, when comparing 2018 to 2019, during the first year of Bolsonaro’s government. The NGO SOS Mata Atlântica revealed the data in a report by, who also points that since 2016 the deforestation rates were in decline. The biome is the most devastated and endangered in Brazil, with 12% of its original coverage and it has one of the richest biodiversities in the world. In April, the Brazilian minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, issued an order that recognized as legal properties deforested areas of the Atlantic Rainforest inside Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs), which allows rural farming in these territories and violates the Federal Forest Code.

The Federal Public Prosecution Office (MPF) filed a lawsuit at a Federal District court to nullify the order 4.410/2020, which implements a recommendation by the Federal Attorney’s Office (AGU) that recognizes as consolidated areas the Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) at the Atlantic Rainforest that were deforested until 2008. This allows landowners to resume production in their properties. The order uses the Forest Code, a general law, to hurt the Atlantic Rainforest Law, a special law, that forbids the occupation of deforested areas inside APPs.The Brazilian Association of Environmental Public Prosecutors (Abrampa) and the NGO SOS Atlantic Rainforest were also signatories of the lawsuit.

Brazil’s Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, issued order 4.410/2020, following a recommendation from the Federal Attorney’s Office (AGU) that recognizes as consolidated areas the Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) at the Atlantic Rainforest that were deforested. This allows landowners to resume production in their properties. The measure responds to an old demand by farmer’s organizations and provides an amnesty to rural landowners responsible for the destruction of crucial areas of the biome until 2008. The order uses the Forest Code, a general law, to hurt the Atlantic Rainforest Law, a special legislation that forbids the occupation of deforested areas in the biome. The Climate Observatory (Observatório do Clima), an environmental coalition, published a technical note calling entities to question the minister’s decision in the judicial sphere.

Mario Mantovani, the director of the NGO SOS Atlantic Rainforest, in an interview for Folha de S. Paulo, said that Minister Salles is creating a problem not only to the forest but to the agribusiness, “who will face more pressure and people saying that they want to destroy the forest”. The public prosecutor Alexandre Gaio, from southern Parana state, said that the order causes judicial insecurity and threatens the region’s water security, since the ones responsible for the deforestation will no longer be obliged to recover the vegetation on river sides.

After a process that started with a Provisional Measure (MP 867), issued at the end of Temer’s Presidency in 2018,  the Chamber of Deputies approved a new Bill of Law that allows the clearing of 5 million hectares of forests in the country, while creating obstacles to reforest another 4 million hectares. MP 867 originally proposed to extend the deadline to landowners and agricultural producers to register and adequate their operations to  the Federal Forest Code. However, when the MP reached the Congress it was turned into a project of Law; as it was processed by different Commissions at the Senate and the House, 35 amendments were further added to the original text. Environmentalists accused Congress of “disfiguring the Forest Code”, saying that the new bill only favors further concentration of lands in the hands of a few owners.

In the same week that the UN released a report showing that the planet is going through a 6th mass extinction process due to accelerated man -induced biodiversity loss, the Minister of the Environment formally announced cuts of almost 23% on its general budget. The cuts were directed to affect specific areas of the Ministry. The Secretary on Climate Change, in charge of implementing the goals of the Paris Agreement, had 95% of its budget frozen;  the area that works to prevent and control forest fires lost 38,4% of its resources; the licensing sector lost 42% and the program that supports conservations units lost 25% of their respective budgets. Two months before the start of the forest fire season, the cuts, along with the changes in staff and the silencing of technicians, compromised the operational capacity of the main environmental agencies in the country.

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PSL-RJ) presented a bill in Congress that eliminates the chapter on mandatory legal reserve for private rural properties from the Federal Forestry Code. Aiming to end what he calls “obstacles” and “expand agribusiness, create jobs and contribute to  the growth of the  country”, the text in practise suppresses the obligation of private rural landowners to maintain part of the native vegetation in their properties. 

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro also  blames “ecological bureaucrats” for distributing false information on agribusiness and states that “NGOs and international bodies should award and praise producers for their role in  protecting the forests”.