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31 de maio de 2012Even with 12 presidential vetoes and a decree (“medida provisória”) that encompasses 32 textual modifications, environmentalists claim that the new Brazilian Land Use Law (“Codigo Florestal”) that the executive branch published yesterday in the Federal Register (“Diário Oficial.”) does contain a deforestation amnesty along with loopholes that will allow more environmental crimes to be committed.
At a press conference yesterday in Brasilia, spokespersons for the Brazilian Committee for the Defense of Forests and Sustainable Development (“Comitê Brasil em Defesa das Florestas e do Desenvolvimento Sustentável”), an umbrella organization of some 160 social associations and NGOs, complained at length about the new text.
André Lima, from the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (“Ipam”) observed that the text signed by president Dilma Rousseff will forgive past fines for illegal activities and permits “recomposition” (“recomposição”) of destroyed areas with plant species that are not native.
“Now these people can plant eucalyptus and pine trees and a permanent protection area (“APP”) will be certified as recuperated,” he charged [the norm is to require that a destroyed area be “restored to its original state”].
“The recomposition of APPs with exotic species that are not part of the ecosystem is more serious than the amnesty and the reduction of the size of APPs,” declared Lima, as he cited at least six articles in the text as examples of the problem.
Another spokesperson at yesterday’s press conference, Raul Telles, a lawyer from the Socio-Environmental Institute (“Instituto Socioambiental – ISA”), said that environmentally Brazil was moving backwards instead of forward. “This is the first time that these areas, the APPs, that are fundamentally important to local biodiversity, can be recomposed with plant species that are not native. Even the farm lobby (“bancada ruralista”) did not have the courage to propose this, but it is here in the text signed by president Dilma Rousseff,” lamented Telles.
The ISA lawyer went on to say that the new text was worse than the 1965 Codigo Florestal. “That law, at least, had good intentions. But it lacked instruments for enforcement. This new text has the same faults, along with evil intentions. As it does not punish deforestation, it could provide economic incentives for the restoration of APPs, but it does do so” said Telles.
One item in the new text that did receive praise from the environment lobby was the creation of a rural register (“Cadastro Ambiental Rural – CAR”) that will be part of a satellite monitoring system that will track recuperation of destroyed areas and spot new deforestation as it takes place. It was cited as one of the few areas of progress with respect to the 1965 Codigo Florestal. However, Telles made a telling point: “The CAR will reduce the expense and expand the scale of monitoring farmland. But why have everybody register if under the terms of the new law practically nobody will have to recuperate anything? The one advance we could have had in this area, we do not have,” said Telles.
Another concern among environmentalists is that further debate on the Codigo Florestal will now take place after the Rio+20 UN Sustainable Development Conference and during municipal elections.
A spokesperson for the Brazilian Committee for the Defense of Forests and Sustainable Development warned that even though the text will return to the Congress at a time when other things are priorities, they intend to maintain pressure, taking advantage of Rio+20 “…as an opportunity to create a domestic and international embarrassment in favor of a Codigo Florestal that adequately meets the needs of the majority.”
