RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On a late May evening, the arrival of military troops caught the attention of residents of Juara, in the state of Mato Grosso, where the forest gave way to one of the largest cattle herds in the country, and the inhabitants are more used to seeing steers than people.
Escorting the convoy, the commander of the 47th Infantry Battalion explained to the city’s mayor that 32 men from the military base located in Coxim, Mato Grosso do Sul – 1,200 km away – had been deployed to bolster the then recently launched Verde Brasil 2 operation to fight deforestation in the Amazon.
Logging continued to increase in the following months, but the operation funds have already been used to renovate roofs, paint walls and change coatings, floors, doors and frames of the 47th Infantry Battalion, far from Juara and beyond the borders of the Legal Amazon.
Begun in mid-May and extended until November 6th, the Verde Brasil 2 operation, part of the government’s Guarantee of Law and Order initiative, was authorized to spend R$418.6 million over these six months with the presence of the Armed Forces in the Amazon. The amount represents more than double the environmental bodies’ annual budget for fighting deforestation and the budget for satellite monitoring by the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), responsible for alerts and for the official deforestation rate.
The spending authorizations for activities by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) total R$176.8 million, between January and December. For Verde Brasil 2, the Ministry of Defense relies on an amount 136 percent higher for a period of less than six months.
Since the Armed Forces were deployed in the Amazon, INPE’s deforestation alert areas have grown from 834 km² in May to 1,043 km² in June and 1,659 km² in July. In August, the alerts totaled 1,359 km². The total accumulated between August last year and July this year, the period for collecting data on the annual deforestation rate, will be yet another record in the decade to be announced in the coming months. Preliminary estimates point to a rate over three times higher than the target set by the National Policy on Climate Change for 2020 of 3,900 km². The patch burnings and fire outbreaks detected by INPE’s satellites between January and September also exceed the 2019 figures for that same period.
An analysis of spending recorded by the National Treasury shows that the operation’s funds financed reforms of military facilities beyond the 47th Infantry Battalion, although this cost the public coffers more. It was more than R$600,000 in spending previously earmarked (the so-called commitments) for a general renovation of the roofs of the Coxim Battalion (MS), commissioned from a company in São Paulo’s interior. “The service has nothing to do with fighting deforestation, and it’s the Battalion that can speak about this”, said on the phone the person responsible for the company’s bids, KJ Indústria e Comércio de Embalagens Ltda.
The replacement of doors and wood, glass and aluminum frames used over R$545,000. The wooden doors should be “mahogany standard”, a tree whose marketing fed the devastation of the Amazon and was subsequently banned. Documents released in the Integrated System of Financial Administration (SIAFI) record the demand for the color red and “premium paint”. The reform also includes the replacement of flooring – with porcelain tiles – and wall covering. By September 24th, the 47th Battalion had recorded R$2.1 million in expenses in Verde Brasil 2’s accounts.
Questioned by the report, the 47th Infantry Battalion advised that it took part in the operation with the deployment to Juara of 141 military troops during the first stage of the project, which lasted one month, until June 26th. In October, another 55 military officers will take part in Verde Brasil 2.
Located in Mato Grosso do Sul, the facilities housed a total of 460 military troops for a period of between one and three days during the operation – which, according to those in charge, would warrant the reform: “The proceeds from this operation are allowing a renewal of all public property under the responsibility of this battalion, particularly its buildings which are 45 years old. These maintenance works have already begun with plans to end on December 31st, 2020”.
Another Army unit that used funds from operation Verde Brasil 2 to reform its facilities was the 44th Motorized Infantry Battalion, in Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso, which is within the Legal Amazon area. The base commissioned the replacement of the roof, as well as the renovation of the electrical installations and new painting.
Expenses launched in September exceeded R$1.2 million, according to records in the National Treasury system. Questioned, the Ministry of Defense failed to explain in what way these reforms contribute to fighting deforestation.
Inside and outside the Legal Amazon, Armed Forces units made use of the money destined for Verde Brasil 2 to paint walls. In July, the Naval Quartermaster Center in Ladário, a city in Mato Grosso do Sul, bought over six hundred gallons of paint for its facilities, in the colors ice white and snow.
The Naval Quartermaster Center in Manaus in August hired the refilling of more than one hundred fire extinguishers – useless in the fight against forest burning. In August, INPE recorded 39,253 fire outbreaks in the Legal Amazon, the largest number in the decade for that month. In September, there were 50,600 fire outbreaks, the highest number in the year.
It is not only the headquarters reforms that explain the spending of Verde Brasil 2. In August alone, the Army Intelligence Center contracted companies for more than R$1.5 million in confidential spending. In this case, the documents released in the National Treasury system do not record the companies’ names or the spending purposes, data “protected by confidentiality”.
Also in August, the Center for Specific Acquisitions of the Aeronautics Command posted spending of R$5.7 million on aircraft maintenance. The purchase of aircraft parts mobilized the Brazilian Army Commission in Washington, at a cost of R$1 million, also posted to Verde Brasil 2’s account.
But it was during September that the operation’s expenses skyrocketed, mainly because of the purchase of fuel for R$22.5 million by the Navy Procurement Center in Rio de Janeiro, by itself the largest expense of Verde Brasil 2. It was more than 6.4 million liters of marine diesel and special diesel, 100,000 liters of aviation kerosene and an additional 55,000 liters of gasoline and diesel oil.
The documents released in the Treasury system contain an observation that this is a “credit rider,” a term used in budget jargon to shift funds from their original purpose – in this case, Verde Brasil 2. When asked about this alleged change in the allocation of funds, the Ministry of Defense also failed to reply. Nor did it submit a spending plan for the operation.
This fuel purchase was exceeded in cost days later by the hiring by the Brazilian Aeronautical Commission in Europe of logistic support for the aircraft fleet, a R$42.5 million deal, entered into on September 30th.
In early July, with less than two months in operation, Verde Brasil 2 had already committed to spend more than INPE does in nine months. However, vice-president Hamilton Mourão, in charge of the National Council of Legal Amazon, complained of lack of funds. On the 10th, the general declared to journalists in charge of covering the Planalto Palace that the Armed Forces had not been granted “a cent” to fight deforestation.
A quick look at the National Treasury system would show that this was untrue. But days later, President Jair Bolsonaro sent Congress a bill requesting authorization for an additional R$410 million in spending on the operation, which would add to the R$8.6 million previously authorized.
The proposal leveraged the exceptional circumstances framework opened by the Covid-19 pandemic, as noted by congressional committee rapporteur Jader Barbalho. “The use of resources from the 2019 financial surplus has a negative impact on the government’s fiscal results. However, due to the recognized state of public calamity in the country, the federal government is exempt from achieving the expected fiscal results.” Before the end of August, with Mourão’s public support, the extra credit was passed by Congress.
The presence of the Armed Forces in the Amazon will be continued for a longer period, announced the general in a meeting of the Amazon Council in July. A letter sent to Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes in August announced plans to extend the military’s fight against deforestation until December 2022, when President Jair Bolsonaro’s term ends.
The schedule provides, for October 2021, “responsiveness” in fighting deforestation and patch burning. The document mentions reducing deforestation “to 2016-2019 levels”. During this period, according to INPE’s estimate, there was an average annual deforestation of 8,100 km², the destruction of forests five times the size of the sprawling city of São Paulo.
This goal is also equivalent to an area 80 percent greater than that deforested in 2012. At that time, the country was praised by the international community for its contribution to contain global warming. Now it is the other way around.
Source: piauí magazine