the challenges of the Lula government in the environmental agenda

Manaus (AM) – The turbulent year of 2022 ended with yet another alarming fact: deforestation figures in the Amazon were the highest in 15 years, with Amazonas being the second state in the country with the highest forest degradation. It is in this context, in addition to the increase in illegal mining and criminal organizations, that the new Lula government will need to act to curb the escalation of socio-environmental crimes in the largest tropical forest in the world.

On the first day of his third term, President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) began work with a series of repeals of environmental decrees issued by the Bolsonaro government, such as decree No. 10,966/2022, which encouraged illegal mining in the Amazon.

The most recent measure, from the package of repeals of decrees signed by the previous government, took place last Monday (16). The Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sônia Guajajara revoked normative instruction 12/22, signed by Bolsonaro at the end of his term in office, in December 2021, which allowed logging on indigenous lands. The announcement was made on the minister’s social media. Without the revocation, IN 12/22 would come into force on January 16th.

“Repealed IN 12/22, from Funai and Ibama, which facilitated the exploitation of timber resources in indigenous lands. This was one of the last acts signed during the Bolsonaro administration. Our commitment is to the protection of indigenous lands. We will not allow any more retreats!”

wrote Minister Sônia Guajajara.

To Em Tempo, elected federal deputy Amom Mandel (Citizenship) stated that he will demand from the new Federal Government the promise made by President Lula to eliminate deforestation in the Amazon. He also questioned whether the current infrastructure is sufficient to stop environmental degradation in the region.

“Will we be able to fight deforestation adequately with only about two armored boats for the entire Amazon? Or should the Federal Government, for example, allocate more funds for the State Government to acquire more speedboats? Should the Federal Government institute new methodologies to help end deforestation? New organs? Adhere to new treaties? This is a debate that must be had.”

said.

The parliamentarian also highlighted the importance of dialogue between the Federal Government and the federal bench of Amazonas on the environmental agenda, which is directly related, according to Amom Mandel, with the local, national and international need to contain environmental damage . However, he said he did not see, at the moment, “that door for dialogue being opened”.

“Part of the parliamentarians on the bench are already in opposition to the government; does this mean that the government will not dialogue with whoever it considers to be ‘in opposition’? It’s worth thinking about,

said the MP.

Regarding the balance of the Bolsonaro government’s environmental policies, political scientist Helso Ribeiro described it as “the worst possible” and recalled the negative image that Brazil passed to the world due to the negative rates of deforestation in the Amazon. “I hope there is no more time and no voice”. He also analyzes that the Lula government must go beyond “speeches”.

”I think that the Lula government cannot remain only in discourse, as it happened on another occasion. But it has to equip IBAMA, ICMBio, and the inspection bodies that were, in a way, disorganized and discredited in the last four years. From then on, make efforts to have a practical result”,

stated.

Attention to the environmental agenda

For researcher and environmentalist Elisa Wandelli, the immediate revocation of decrees, ordinances and INs, signed by the previous administration, was “extremely necessary and important”. According to the environmentalist, the actions of the new government targeted measures taken by the Bolsonaro government that “destroyed and weakened the framework of environmental protection and weakened the lives of indigenous and traditional peoples and Brazilian popular participation in participatory processes.

“Among the main repeals of the destruction policies, President Lula and the current Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, re-established the Permanent Interministerial Commission for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation and the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon. – PPCDAm and other biomes. The Lula government also revoked the legislation of the previous government that prevented civil society and part of the scientific society from having a seat on the National Council for the Environment”,

highlighted.

The researcher highlighted the reactivation of the Amazon Fund, which was stopped during the Bolsonaro government due to the increase in deforestation and the weakening of control and inspection bodies. The Amazon Fund was created in 2008 to raise international donations to promote preservation programs and projects. This Wednesday (18), the Minister of the Environment Marina Silva announced, in an interview with the Economic Forum in Davos, that the fund could exceed around US$ 10 billion.

Researcher Carlos Durigan also evaluated the repeal of decrees from the past administration as a sure-fire action by the current government. For him, the nomination of Marina Silva as Minister of the Ministry of the Environment is a sign that the environmental agenda must gain attention and responsibility.

“We have the potential to quickly reverse the degradation scenario we are living in and still get the global support we need to pursue important agendas, not only to contain the advance of deforestation and degradation, but also to build effective and positive development policies. sustainability in all Brazilian biomes”,

said.

The positive signal about the progress and strengthening of environmental guidelines is also understood by the environmental analyst of the Environmental Protection Institute of Amazonas (Ipaam) Arivan Ribeiro Reis.

“The actions [do governo Lula] whether they differ from and oppose the speech and actions of the Bolsonaro government, which weakened and scrapped environmental agencies, encouraged environmental crimes, including in indigenous lands; and that, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, he defended the criminal practice of ‘taking the opportunity to pass the cattle’. Practice that encouraged land invasions and record deforestation in the Amazon”,

stated.

Bolsonaro’s legacy

According to the environmentalists interviewed by Em Tempo, the legacy of the Bolsonaro government in relation to environmental policy in the country is one of complete destruction, whether in the demobilization of inspection bodies, or in the effects of the relaxation of environmental standards in the Amazon.

“We simply had a government that, based on denialism and resentment, established a policy of dismantling and weakening state structures whose mission is to take care of our national natural heritage. Along with this, it still closed the doors to society’s representations in decision-making spheres and disrupted important policies established in recent decades, such as those aimed at controlling deforestation and those aimed at raising and allocating funds for the construction of an agenda focused on to sustainable development”,

explained environmentalist Carlos Durigan.

The report by the Institute for Man and the Environment in the Amazon (Imazon), released on Wednesday (18), revealed that over the last four years the loss of vegetation cover in the Amazon was 35,193 km², the highest since 2008. deforested area, 80% is the responsibility of the federal government.

In total, according to Imazon, just last year, the biome lost almost 3,000 soccer fields per day, which is equivalent to 10,573 km².

In the Legal Amazon region, Amazonas ranks second among the states with the highest volume of deforestation in 2022, with 2,270 km², second only to Pará, which leads the list of degradation of the Amazon forest with 3,089 km². Amazonas and Mato Grosso, according to the Imazon Institute, were the only states that had an increase in deforestation compared to the year 2021.

In addition to the increase in deforestation in the Amazon, according to the study Cartographies of Violence in the Amazon Region, groups of criminal factions that are closely related to environmental crimes, such as illegal logging, mining and conflicts over land, have proliferated in the region.

“As if the weakening of the state and public policies for the socio-environmental agenda were not enough, in its speeches and in its inaction, it also promoted the growth of environmental crimes, encouraging and supporting in its speeches and actions, the expansion of a scenario of conflicts and crimes throughout the Amazon”,

said environmentalist Carlos Durigan.

Illegal mining was another activity that grew in the last four years of the Bolsonaro government. According to the MapBiomas survey, in 2021, mining reached the highest growth in 36 years, with 15,000 hectares. In addition to environmental degradation, the mining footprint also affects riverside populations and indigenous peoples. According to the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), populations in the Amazon close to mining have a lower Social Progress Index (SPI) compared to other Amazonian regions.

challenges and paths

Even though the new federal government has started repealing Bolsonaro’s environmental policy decrees, for researcher and environmentalist Elisa Wandelli, they are not enough to recover all the dismantling of public policies and environmental destruction promoted by the previous government.

“Not by itself is it intended that they will promote all the progress necessary for Brazil to stop destroying its forests and its traditional peoples and so that we can live in sustainability and contribute to planetary life”, he pointed out.

The main challenge to the new government’s environmental policy, according to Eliza Wandelli, is the recovery of territories dominated by organized crime by prospectors, loggers, drug trafficking, predatory fishing activities and land grabbing of public territories and lands of native peoples in the Amazon.

“These offenders were greatly strengthened in the previous government mainly due to the dismantling of environmental institutions and police responsible for inspection, monitoring and mitigation of environmental crimes, due to the arms policy and due to the inappropriate stimulus to environmental crimes and non-punishment”, he explained.

In this sense, the environmentalist warns of the need to go beyond the “reconstruction of a legal framework for environmental protection”.

“We will have to rebuild the budgets, structures, human resources and democratic and sustainability principles of the institutions responsible for overseeing, monitoring and mitigating deforestation. [No âmbito] of teaching, technical assistance and research for sustainability. AND [reconstruir] institutions that promote food sovereignty, environmental conservation, income generation and quality of life for the people of the waters, countryside, forests and cities”, he highlighted.

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