Fires expose slowness in the management of the Amazon Fund

The management of Amazon Fund resources has been criticized amid the fire crisis that affects, in particular, the Brazilian Amazon, which has already recorded, between January and September, 104,364 fires, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research ( Inpe). Only after demands from the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and complaints from the states, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), manager of the Amazon Fund, announced, last Thursday (26), the approval of projects to combat fire in the region.

R$180 million will be allocated to four states in the Amazon: Amapá, Amazonas, Pará and Roraima. The values, however, may take time to be released. According to the Secretary of Environment of Amazonas, Eduardo Taveira, both the Ministry of the Environment and BNDES have been slow in releasing resources from the Amazon Fund. This slowness is seen as an obstacle, especially at a time when the fire crisis requires immediate responses from the federal government.

Despite the concerns of the states, when announcing the resources, the president of BNDES, Aloizio Mercadante, stated that the issue is a priority. “This is an absolutely priority project for the country. Brazil is feeling the pressure of the environmental crisis on a daily basis, and we are acting to enable a more effective fight against fires,” said Mercadante.

The announcement, however, comes after criticism from the Amazon states and the demand from the Federal Supreme Court (STF) for the Ministry of the Environment and BNDES to comment on the delay in analyzing state projects to preserve the Amazon forest. Minister Flávio Dino, rapporteur of the Court’s actions on the topic, asked for 30 days for responses from both bodies, after a conciliation hearing held on September 19.

At the time, Eduardo Taveira mentioned that a R$45 million project to combat fires in Amazonas, presented by the state government in November last year, was still under analysis.

The approval of the projects only after the outbreak of the fire crisis and public charges was also criticized by analysts interviewed by the People’s Gazette. For them, the announcement is late and reinforces the inefficiency of the Amazon Fund.

“It is necessary to review, as a whole, the need, adequacy and effectiveness of the Fund”, points out the doctor in law from PUC-SP, George Humbert, president of the Brazilian Institute of Law and Sustainability (Ibrades).

Until then, little resources had been released for fires

The new projects supported by resources from the Amazon Fund will benefit fire departments in the states of Amapá, Amazonas, Pará and Roraima. Until then, only nine of the 114 projects supported by the Amazon Fund dealt with fighting fires and burning.

The nine oldest projects, combined, provide R$527.6 million to combat fires. However, the amount actually disbursed to date is just over R$77 million, which represents less than 15% of the total.

According to the proposals involving the allocation of R$180 million announced this week by BNDES, R$168.6 million will be used to purchase equipment, vehicles and machines, in addition to carrying out works in the four states. The value represents 94% of the resources. The remainder, R$11.3 million, will subsidize the development of prevention actions.

The delay in the process of releasing resources and effectively acquiring items to combat the fires is also a concern. “What is needed now is resources to hire staff and rent vehicles and aircraft, on an emergency basis. The equipment acquisition processes are long and do not match the current critical situation”, pointed out the former director of environmental protection at the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), Samuel Souza.

Resources from the Amazon Fund for fires are “negligible”, says former president of Ibama

Souza also states that the R$180 million announced by the Amazon Fund for fires is insufficient and arrives late. “This amount is equivalent to a supplementary credit that is used in an emergency in PrevFogo [Centro Nacional de Prevenção e Combate aos Incêndios Florestais] in the year. R$180 million is not a lot for four states in the midst of the emergency we are experiencing. It’s a ridiculous amount”, warns Souza.

The BNDES points out that there are R$405 million in non-refundable resources (also known as “lost fund”) from the Amazon Fund available to support corporations that fight fires. However, of this amount, BNDES effectively released only R$21.7 million for operations planned in the state of Acre.

The way the projects were approved was criticized. “Now, to remedy a historical error, a project is approved, in a rushed, unplanned manner and when the damage has already occurred,” said Georges Humbert when referring to the fires affecting the Brazilian Amazon.

The approval of the resources also highlights the failure of the federal government in managing the fires. The Union is responsible for just one of the projects focused on combating fires. The proposal foresees the allocation of R$318.5 million to “combat environmental and related crimes related to the dynamics of deforestation and forest degradation”. The project was approved in December 2023, but, to date, no disbursement has been recorded.

In November 2023, Ibama signaled that it was finalizing a project to obtain resources from the Amazon Fund to expand actions against fires. The information was confirmed at the time by the president of Ibama, Rodrigo Agostinho, when Estadão. “Ibama must submit a robust project for the Amazon Fund at the end of the year. It is in the final stages of completion”, he stated. THE People’s Gazette consulted Ibama, but did not receive confirmation on the presentation of the project.

“Amazon Fund needs to be reviewed”, says analyst

Currently, most of the projects supported by the Amazon Fund are linked to indigenous issues, 37 out of a total of 114 projects. The number is greater than projects related to Conservation Units, for example, which total 30. More than 60% of the projects are responsible for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

For Georges Humbert, these numbers and the approval of the most recent projects related to fires demonstrate the inconsistency in the way the Amazon Fund is conducted. “There is no coherence between the objects carried out and the effective needs of the people, the economy and the biodiversity of the region”, states Humbert, who also criticizes the lack of transparency and accountability in management.

What is the Amazon Fund and how does it work?

The Amazon Fund is administered by BNDES in coordination with the Ministry of the Environment. It has two committees, the Amazon Fund Guidance Committee (Cofa) and the Amazon Fund Technical Committee (CTFA), which make up its governance structure and are formed by members of the government, BNDES and countries that contribute through donations – R$4.1 billion have already been received.

Created in 2008, the Amazon Fund spent the four years of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) government paralyzed and, as a result, new donations and the approval and contracting of new projects were interrupted. When justifying the strike, which began in 2019, the then Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles said that his management identified governance problems, the origin of which he attributed to the strategy of choosing projects to receive financial contributions. To solve this problem, the former minister intended to reformulate the Amazon Fund’s management structure, but this was never done.

Salles’ position is reinforced by the doctor in law and president of the Brazilian Institute of Law and Sustainability (Ibrades), Georges Humbert. “It is necessary to use these huge resources in favor of priority public policies, not for a hundred projects by ideological NGOs that do not resolve the serious issues of burning, deforestation and illegal mining, land regularization, unemployment and lack of access to health and education in the region”, he says.

Amazon Fund has already been investigated in CPI

The transfers and application of the Amazon Fund have already been the subject of investigations through the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) of NGOs. At the CPI, senators pointed out that the majority of the Fund’s resources end up not being used in practical actions. One of the cases cited is that of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam). Data presented by the CPI showed that the institute used only 11% of the funds received by the Amazon Fund for environmental services. According to the president of the CPI of NGOs, senator Plínio Valério (PSDB-AM), the institution would have received almost R$24 million from the Fund, of which only R$2.8 million would have been spent on actions. The remainder was used to pay staff.

The CPI report also highlighted a series of flaws and a lack of transparency regarding the Amazon Fund’s resources. The commission reported, for example, that it had identified deficiencies in the detailing of expenses, proof of activities carried out, recipients of bank transfers and purpose of expenses.

In testimony to the CPI of NGOs, André Guimarães, executive director of Ipam, defended the organization. According to him, the only sustainable settlements project in the Amazon coordinated by the NGO lasted four years. He also mentioned the production of scientific articles to justify the high internal spending.

“We have already produced more than 1,200 scientific articles, published in almost all the important journals in the world. It is a library of data about the Amazon, all free to the public around the world. A high-level production, which has already generated public policies, where we address the risks and paths for the region”, stated Guimarães.