The setback of the timeframe and MP 1154 – 06/07/2023 – Maria Hermínia Tavares

On Monday (5), International Environment Day, President Lula announced the new Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm), prepared by Minister Marina Silva’s team. It is the fourth update of the strategy responsible for the sharp drop in deforestation in the region between 2004 and 2012.

That same day, Lula vetoed parts of the law recently approved by Congress that weakened the mechanisms for protecting the Atlantic Forest. In doing so, he was faithful to the commitment to the environmental agenda stated in his inaugural speech and reiterated before foreign audiences.

Last week, however, the coherence failed. The government seems not to have moved a straw to prevent, first, the Chamber from approving project 490, that of the disastrous Marco Temporal; second, that the no less retrograde Provisional Measure 1154, which restructured the federal government, eliminating relevant attributions of the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.

PL 490, which is now pending in the Senate, restricts the possibility of demarcating indigenous lands to those occupied on October 5, 1988 —when the current Constitution came into force—, affronting rights explicitly guaranteed to native populations. If approved, they would be exposed to the greed of all kinds of environmental predators: land grabbers, loggers, miners and traffickers of animals, drugs and people. If that happens, the very objectives of the PPCDAm announced by the government with justifiable emphasis would be affronted.

The current explanation for this setback –which is attributed to the hegemonic right in Congress and the strength of the so-called ruralist caucus– is far from convincing.

There is no doubt that the scope of government action in relations with the Legislature has narrowed. In both Houses, where the right reigns, the leaders have more leverage to pressure the Executive, and the fragmentation on the benches seems greater. As a result, it became more difficult to hold the heterogeneous governing coalition together.

However, even in the past, when the gears of coalition presidentialism were more oiled, the power of the Executive always depended on the clarity with which the current holder defined his priorities and his determination to build political majorities around him. All of this was missing from the government’s articulators in dealing with the time frame and the change in ministries. As long as the environmental issue –on which one thing and another affect– is not in fact among the government’s stony commitments, the gate through which the delay passes will remain ajar.

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