Legislation allows concessionary companies of conservation units to sell carbon credits.| Photo: Antonio Lacerda/EFE

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) sanctioned the law that allows concessionaire companies for conservation units to sell carbon credits, which are a kind of certificate that proves the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The permission was published this Thursday (25th) in the Official Gazette of the Union and also brings changes in legislation on the management of public forests for sustainable production, the creation of the Chico Mendes Institute and the National Fund on Climate Change (see in fullThe)

“Concessions in conservation units, public lands and assets of federal entities may include in their object the right to develop and commercialize payment projects for environmental services and carbon credits, according to regulation”, says the legislation.

Lula, however, vetoed one of the sections of the legislation that provided for the inclusion as a legal reserve of “the areas registered in registration with the objective of maintaining a wood stock, designated as technical plans for conduction and management or other similar designations prior to the conceptualization of legal reserve by Law No. 7,803, of July 18, 1989”.

The president justified the veto, after a statement by the Ministry of the Environment, claiming that the amendment “would represent a reduction in the current standards of environmental protection in legal reserve areas, with an unequivocal violation of the constitutional principle of the prohibition of environmental retrogression” (see in full) .