In an exclusive report by the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (Inesc) for O Eco, it was found that throughout his mandate, Jair Bolsonaro has allocated only 0.16% of the total federal budget to the environment. This number refers to the average of the four years of his government, considering the mandatory and discretionary expenses of the executive branch. The report, entitled “After the Dismantling: Overview of Union Spending 2019-2022,” shows that the environmental area had a real loss of 17% in execution during the Bolsonaro administration, going from R$3.3 billion in 2019 to R$2.7 billion in 2022.

The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) was the most affected organization, with a real drop of 32% over four years, falling from R$1.8 billion in 2019 to R$744 million in 2022. The Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) also had an 8% reduction in its budget, going from R$1.8 billion to R$1.7 billion during the Bolsonaro administration. Inesc’s report highlights that the reduced budget was further exacerbated by staff reductions, with the number of environmental inspectors falling from 1,800 in 2019 to 700 in 2022.

To create memory and help elaborate on the tragedy of mineral policy under the Bolsonaro government, The Mining Observatory [Observatório da Mineração] and Smoke Signal [Sinal de Fumaça] have launched the bilingual report “Pure Dynamite: how Bolsonaro’s Government (2019-2022) Mineral Policy Set Up a Climate and Anti-Indigenous Bomb” an independent production that brings a timeline of the mineral sector and details the dismantling of regulatory bodies, rights violations, scandalous agreements and other measures adopted by the former government to satisfy the mineral market lobby in the country and the world.

In its thorough and investigative work, Observatório da Mineração closely followed the work that Bolsonaro’s government undertook at the national and international levels to dismantle public policies and sell mining and metal goods. Investigations have shown that his administration promoted legal and infralegal changes that benefited large mining companies, caused the criminal networks of illegal mining to soar, and made institutions such as the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the National Mining Agency totally subservient to vested financial interests. Smoke Signal Socio-Environmental Monitor, which has recorded facts and movements related to Brazilian socio-environmental policies over the last four years, joined Observatório da Mineração to produce this unprecedented report.

In addition to exposing the sophisticated articulations made between the mining market lobby, transnational companies and the federal government behind closed doors in the National Congress, the publication also brings a brief summary of the first measures adopted by Lula’s government and a list with 20 initial suggestions for the recovery of public governance and the reduction of negative effects of mining in the country. 

Click here to read our report in english. Also available in portuguese.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously declared unconstitutional a law of the state of Roraima that prevented the destruction of private property seized in environmental operations in the state. The decision was made in a virtual session and confirmed the injunction granted by Justice Luis Roberto Barroso in Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality (ADIs) 7.200 and 7.204, proposed by the Rede Sustentabilidade party and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).

The thesis established by the Justices is that the state law violates the exclusive competence of the Union to legislate on Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, to issue general rules for environmental protection and as an affront to the right to an ecologically balanced environment.

The governments of Brazil and Germany made a joint announcement on Monday (30) to give more details about a contribution of about 200 million euros, which will be sent by Germany, to be used in environmental actions in Brazil.

The announcement was made in Brasilia, after a meeting between the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, and the German Minister of Cooperation, Svenja Schulze.

The administration of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) took broad action and exonerated at once practically all regional and state superintendents for Ibama (Brazilian environmental agency). The dismissals were published on a special edition of the Official Diary of the Union on the evening of Friday, January 13th. 

Ibama has 26 state offices across the country; according to newspaper Folha de São Paulo, during Bolsonaro’s administration the agency was used to accommodate his allies in strategic positions. Former minister Ricardo Salles and former Ibama’s president Ricardo Bim, for instance, appointed several military police officers to lead the civil agency’ s offices. In some cases, those nominated were accused by public servants and experts of harassment, persecution and conflict of interests. 

The current administration now changed 20 out of 26 Ibama’s chiefs at states; the move also affected first tier officials for the Minister of Climate and Environment and its associated secretaries, agencies and governing bodies. 

A week before, on January 2nd, Lula’s government had already exonerated 1.204 public servants who worked under Bolsonaro.  Advisors and directors occupying positions of trust in the previous administration were dismissed following orders signed by Lula’s chief of staff, Rui Costa, as published in the Official Diary of the Union. 

This first wave of exonerations hit federal ministries and agencies, as well as the Presidency structure. A total of 7 ministries were affected, including the Ministry of the Environment, as well as direct advisors and staff for the president ‘s personal team.  The dismissals also swept through the Secretary for Strategic Issues (Homeland) and federal autarchies such as the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), Instituto Chico Mendes for Biodiversity and Conservation as well as the above mentioned environmental agency Ibama. 

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.

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.

A group of Brazilian researchers linked to INPE(National Institute for Space Research) has submitted a paper to the scientific journal Nature that claims carbon emissions doubled under Bolsonaro, specifically between 2019 and 2020, when compared to 2010 to 2018. The main reason for the emissions was human action driven by the dismantling of environmental enforcement and governance, says the study, which assessed the loss of the ability of the world’s largest tropical forest to act as a carbon sink and mitigate the effects of climate change.

According to the research, led by chemist Luciana Gatti, the effect was similar to the damage caused in 2010 and 2015/16 by El Niño, a climate phenomenon that makes the Amazon drier and more flammable. In 2019, the increase in emissions was of 89%. In 2020, 122%. More recent data show that deforestation records continued to be broken in 2021 and 2022, possibly worsening this scenario.

Agents of the Operation “Guardians of the Biome”, led by the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety, were attacked in the Jamanxim National Forest (Flona do Jamanxim), in the southwest of the state of Pará. The workers had their tent set on fire, but no one was injured.

The crime happened two days after two people were arrested for illegal deforestation inside the protected area.

The Operation was launched on June 21st to fight forest fires in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Amapá, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Pará, Piauí, Rondônia, Roraima, Rio Grande do Sul and Tocantins. The action will continue until January 2023, with an investment of R$ 77 million. The work involves 1.8 thousand agents of the National Force and more than 3 thousand workers from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and from Ibama, in addition to firemen.

By March 2022, over 97% of the deforestation alerts issued since the beginning of Bolsonaro administration weren’t answered to, according to a survey by the MapBiomas initiative. The area with enforcement operations, however, represents 13.1% of deforestation detected since January 2019.

The data comes from the “Deforestation Surveillance Monitor” online platform, which presents “in a direct, updated, and transparent way the data on deforestation authorizations and enforcement actions by the federal government” and the state governments of Goiás, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, São Paulo, and Pará, explains the project’s website. “There are important advances, especially in the states, but the Monitor data show that impunity still looms large when we talk about illegal deforestation in Brazil,” says Tasso Azevedo, general coordinator of MapBiomas.

According to a report released by the Climate Observatory at the beginning of the year, the environmental agency Ibama failed to execute about 60% of the budget for environmental crime control in 2021, a year in which the country broke successive deforestation records.

Two army officers have been identified as the responsible for a network of 14 fake profiles and nine Facebook pages, as well as 39 Instagram accounts, used for attacking NGOs and environmentalists and spreading lies about the Amazon and environmental issues in Brazil.

The information was shared by the company in its quarterly report on threats made by users. “We cannot share many details of how our investigation reached the military. The more we share, the more these networks are able to hide. We use technical and behavioral signals,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of global security policy, told the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo.

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.

A report by Agência Pública revealed that order 7036900/2020, a key piece in the investigation of Operation Akuanduba, allowed lumber companies to export 100,000 tons of Amazonian wood, including endangered species, during the 15 months it was in effect. The amount exported, which includes wood from endangered trees, is higher than in the last four years.

Fiquem Sabendo, an independent data agency specialized in the Access to Information Law (LAI) denounced the lack of transparency of the ICMBio in an article about environmental crimes. The federal agency denied access to information on companies and individuals fined for environmental violations in conservation areas.

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.

Bolsonaro’s administration announced that Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite is the new Minister of the Environment. Leite joined the government in 2019 as director Forestry Department of the Ministry, a position he held until April 2020, when he took over the Secretary of the Amazon and Environmental Services, where he was until now.

The new minister is an old acquaintance of big farmers. He was a board member of the Brazilian Rural Society (SRB) for more than two decades, an entity allied to the Agriculture and Livestock Parliamentary Front (FPA), known as the “ruralist bench” of the National Congress. According to the BBC, Leite is a member of a family of coffee farmers from São Paulo state who claim an area of the Jaraguá Indigenous Land, located in the city capital, and his grandfather is accused of being responsible for violent actions against the indigenous people who live in the territory.

In an article about the new minister, experts heard by El País expressed apprehension at Pereira Leite’s nomination and had little hope that his management will follow a different course than the previous one.

Minister Ricardo Salles has resigned. At the head of the Ministry of Environment since the beginning of Bolsonaro’s administration, Salles is the target of investigations in the Supreme Court (STF) within operations Akuanduba, launched to investigate crimes against public administration committed by public agents and loggers, and Handroanthus, which investigates an illegal timber export scheme. The São Paulo Justice Department is also investigating the former minister for embezzlement during the period in which he was secretary of the Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) state administration, in a lawsuit involving his law firm.

Ricardo Salles stepped down after gaining knowledge that Justice Alexandre de Morais would order his arrest, according to an article in O Estado de S. Paulo. The newspaper also said that Bolsonaro asked the former minister to remain in office and face the STF, but Salles replied that he feared for the safety of his mother, also investigated as a partner in his office in São Paulo.

The investigations now will leave STF’s reach and return to the Federal Courts of Brasilia and Amazonas. The Federal Police has already brought suspicions to the STF that the Amazon justice system was benefiting the former minister and the others investigated in the scope of Operation Handroanthus.

Critics and environmentalists consider Salles the worst Environment Minister Brazil has ever had. His tenure had as characteristics: the dismantling of Brazilian environmental policy, successive records of deforestation and fires in the Amazon, attacks on traditional communities and sectors of organized civil society, and the spread of fake news.

In a farewell to the former minister, President Jair Bolsonaro praised his time in the ministry. “Dear Ricardo Salles, you are part of history. The marriage of Agriculture with the Environment was an almost perfect marriage. Congratulations, Ricardo Salles. It is not easy to be in your ministry. Sometimes the legacy is just a bunch of lawsuits,” he declared.

Data from the Deter system of the National Institute for Space Research reveals that deforestation in Conservation Units (UCs) rose by 312% in May 2021, when compared to the same month in 2020. The area lost was of 11,296 hectares of forest in 2021 — over three times more than in 2020, when 741 hectares were destroyed.

The protected areas are under the responsibility of Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity (ICMBio), which has suffered with budget cuts, militarization of key positions, and the weakening of its monitoring role under the administration of Minister Ricardo Salles. The institute has now 1,5 thousand open positions, with no provision for a public contest.

A survey commissioned by the Amazonian Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) showed that the majority of the Brazilian population wants the protection of the Amazon, but do not think that the federal government is up to the task. The survey heard 2 thousand people in five regions of Brazil, between February 24 and March 5.

According to the interviewed, environmental NGOs (32%) and indigenous communities and traditional peoples (29%) are more trustworthy for the conservation of the biome. Only 13% indicated the federal government.

Almost 70% of the people interviewed think that inspection measures, the application of fines and fighting illegal activities are crucial for stopping the fires that are forecast to happen in the coming months of drought. Also, 47% said that the state does not fulfill its role in controlling deforestation.

Eugenio Pantoja, IPAM’s director of Public Policy and Territorial Development, reinforces that the public perception is faithful to the modus operandi of the Bolsonaro administration in the environmental area, who saw all-time lows in environmental fines and all-time highs deforestation records. “The perception of Brazilians is faithful to the reality. The preponderant role of the federal government in controlling deforestation and fires in the Amazon is unequivocal, but we have seen a weakening of environmental policies and of inspection agencies”, says Pantoja.

Justice Cármen Lúcia, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), authorized, at the request of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), the opening of an investigation against the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles.

The investigation will focus on the alleged attempts by the minister to hinder the work of the Federal Police during Operation Handroanthus, which carried out the largest seizure of illegal timber in Brazil, in December 2020. The investigation will listen to the minister, landowners, environmental agents and documents related to the incident.

Salles’ press office stated that “the investigation will show that there is no crime.”

Testimonies made by Ibama employees to the Federal Police as part of Operation Akuanduba, which investigates smuggling of illegal timber from the Amazon, have substantiated the accusations against Minister Ricardo Salles.

In an article about the operation, Veja magazine highlighted the militarization of key positions in a testimony by the environmental analyst nicknamed C.E.R.J., who reported the presence of military personnel specially in charge of Ibama’s inspections – “they are in almost all the superintendencies in the states and in positions of trust in the Inspection Directorate and the Planning Directorate,” said the employee, according to the magazine.

When heard by O Globo, environmental analyst Hugo Leonardo Mota Ferreira said that the minister Ricardo Salles is a “supporter of devastation and destruction” and that his tenure will be remembered for the persecution of members of the ministry’s agencies who act contrary to his interests.

The environmentalist portal ClimaInfo collected the repercussions of the statements in the press in its daily bulletin and also highlighted the information revealed by Folha de S. Paulo about the interference of Salles’ special advisor at Ibama to favor an agricultural enterprise in the state of Mato Grosso.