RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Deforestation in the Atlantic Forest between 2018 and 2019 grew by approximately 27 percent compared to the preceding period, according to data from the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica. The increase in destruction in the biome, now the most devastated in the country – with only 12 percent of the forest – coming from two consecutive declines, followed the widespread devastation in the Amazon and Cerrado during the first year of the Jair Bolsonaro government.
The deforestation of the 14,502 hectares recorded is once again concentrated in the states of Bahia, Minas Gerais (bordering the tropical savanna), and Paraná (in regions with Brazilian pine trees), with an increase in destruction of 78, 47 and 35 percent, respectively.
In parallel, the states of Alagoas, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, and São Paulo have achieved zero deforestation (less than three hectares). According to Mario Mantovani, public policy director of the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation, the Bolsonaro government’s discourse, that “anything is possible and there is no more law”, may be linked to the growth in deforestation, particularly considering its concentration in states that were already experiencing the issue.
Since his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro has criticized environmental inspection and talked about an alleged industry of environmental fines in Brazil. While still a federal deputy, the President was fined by IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) for irregular fishing but failed to pay it – as is the case with most environmental fines in the country. In July last year, IBAMA said collection of Bolsonaro’s violation was time-barred in 2018.
In the first year of the Bolsonaro government, Brazil imposed the lowest number of fines for environmental infractions in the past 24 years.
In 2019, amid the high levels of destruction in the Amazon, Bolsonaro began to question the deforestation data produced by INPE (National Institute of Space Research) and said the Institute’s then-director, Ricardo Galvão, could be at the “service of some NGO”.
After witnessing the record deforestation of the Amazon, Bolsonaro at first avoided discussing the issue, and then stated that the destruction of the forest is something cultural in Brazil and will not end.
Bolsonaro’s tone on the issue is echoed by Ricardo Salles, the Minister of the Environment. Following the announcement of record deforestation figures in the Amazon, Salles said that if by 2020 the annual increase in destruction was below the 29.5 percent increase recorded in 2019, “it would be a victory” and that illegal zero-deforestation should not happen.
Last week, a video of a cabinet meeting was released, during which Salles said the government should seize the pandemic to implement changes in rules, to deregulate and simplify procedures. The Minister later denied that the statement referred to a potential relaxation of environmental rules for agribusiness to advance.
During the same meeting, the Minister said that “at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture” the “simplification of the Atlantic Forest Law” had been implemented. In practice, the decree signed by Salles amid the Covid-19 crisis in the country amnestied landowners who destroyed areas of the biome.
“The Minister put his fingerprint on it when he signed the decree,” Mantovani says.
The director of public policies for SOS Mata Atlântica says Salles’ efforts aimed at serving groups of producers in Paraná, bring legal insecurity to a biome with specific legislation regulated locally.
“The Atlantic Forest law is so interesting that it can be up to the municipality to project how to manage the forest in its territory,” he says. “How many large paper and pulp companies with the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council, the main seal of good forest management practices), certified agricultural cooperatives…can endanger this group which is trying to distinguish itself in the only biome with law because Brazil is already badly perceived due to the lack of control in the Amazon and the Cerrado”.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) has brought a lawsuit in which it requests the annulment of Salles’ ordinance. The Office states that the document “destroys a significant portion of the protection of the Atlantic Forest biome’s native vegetation, providing an even greater vulnerability to water security in times of climate change and notable, recurring and increasingly intense events of water scarcity and rationing of drinking water supplies”.
Mantovani says that the government should not rely on deregulation, but should encourage conservation through such means as payments for environmental services, and ecological variation of the value-added ICMS (Tax on Sales of Goods and Services), where municipalities with protected areas receive income through revenue sharing from the states.
Under Brazil’s constitution, of the total ICMS tax revenue collected by each state, 25 percent must be shared among its municipalities. Each municipality receives these amounts in accordance with several factors, such as added value – the municipality’s economic impact on total collection. One of the criteria used to increase the amount received in 17 states is to have municipal conservation units. The amount derived from the ecological ICMS does not necessarily need to be destined to the environmental area.
In the two previous annual periods, the Atlantic Forest recorded reductions in deforestation; in 2017-2018 the biome recorded its lowest deforestation rates ever, according to the Atlantic Forest Atlas, an annual project conducted since 1989 by the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation and INPE.
Source: Folhapress