After 2019 clash with European donors, VP Mourão says it’s “all set” to resume Brazil Amazon Fund

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Vice President Hamilton Mourão (PRTB) said on Monday (18) that it is “all ready” for the resumption of the Amazon Fund, created in 2008 to distribute resources to projects to prevent and combat deforestation and for the conservation and sustainable use of forests in the Legal Amazon.

When asked by reporters about the fund’s resumption, the vice president answered: “It’s that story, if we have a good result, it will come back. Everything is ready, they just need to give the green light.”

Read also: These articles will update you regarding Brazil’s Amazon Fund

The governments of Germany and Norway are the main funders of the Amazon Fund. The European countries decided to interrupt their transfers in August 2019, after record fires in the region. About R$2.9 billion (US$540 million) are frozen in a federal savings bank account, according to NGOs participating in the Climate Observatory.

Mourão has a meeting this Monday with Norway’s new ambassador to Brazil, Mads Halfdan Lie, in his office at the Vice Presidency.

The Brazilian government has been saying that the fund will be resumed soon, but there have been no signals to that effect from the European funding countries yet.

In 2019, the Bolsonaro government abolished the collective Guidance Committee (COFA) and Technical Committee (CTFA), which formed the basis of the fund. Since then, there has been an imbroglio with the countries around the changes in the resource management model.

Also, in 2019, before the fund was paralyzed, the former Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, tried to change the rules and announced the intention to allocate the resources raised to compensate landowners who live in areas of conservation.

COP26

The vice-president, who also commands the National Council for the Legal Amazon (Cnal), said it is necessary to wait for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) results, which starts in less than two weeks in Glasgow, Scotland.

“Let’s see now, there is still the COP, there is the result of the COP. I think that afterward, we have good conditions to move forward,” affirmed Mourão.

After President Jair Bolsonaro denied the request of his vice-president to lead the Brazilian delegation, the person responsible for repeating the message that the president himself reinforced at the UN Assembly in September, will be the Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, who will insist on the discourse that Brazil has been firmly committed to the protection of nature.

The Brazilian government intends to insist on demanding financial resources from rich countries to pursue targets to reduce deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions bolder than those of the 2015 Paris Agreement.