Above photo: Amazon deforestation. Felipe Werneck/AP.
The government of leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will launch a social program with economic aid to vulnerable families working in the conservation of the Amazon rainforest that is a similar program that was repealed by the previous president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
The program, called ‘Bolsa Verde’, an environmental version of the popular ‘Bolsa Familia’, will be implemented in 30,000 families in the Brazilian Amazon, but the government’s intention is to expand it to other biomes, such as the Cerrado (the Brazilian savannah) or the Atlantic Forest, all threatened by deforestation and other environmental crimes.
“These families will receive state subsidies as payment for the services they provide for the protection of the environment. About 80 % of the world’s protected forests are under the control of these traditional communities. This has to do with the recognition of the role played by these communities in maintaining the preservation of ecosystem services,” said the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, when announcing the program.
The government did not detail the amount of the subsidy or when the program will be launched, which will initially focus on families in traditional extractivist communities, who live from the forest without cutting down trees and who collect fruits or plants for medicinal use.
Zero deforestation by 2030
This action is part of the measures announced last Monday by Lula to fulfill his promise to eliminate deforestation by 2030. The policy includes the creation of new environmental protection areas and contemplates the possibility that 50% of illegally deforested lands will be seized.
In addition to returning resources withdrawn by the Bolsonaro administration from state environmental control agencies, Lula resumed, among other things, the demarcation of lands for indigenous people, considered the best ‘guardians of the forest’.
Recent defeats for Lula
But the president’s environmental plans have suffered several recent setbacks in a Congress dominated by conservative forces, with the powerful agribusiness sector, a strong ally of bolsonarismo.
Last week, legislators approved the removal of essential powers from the Environment and Indigenous Affairs portfolios.
The first portfolio was stripped of the management of the cadastre, where all rural properties must be registered and which is used to map land invasions and control deforested areas.
The latter was stripped of the power to demarcate the lands of the native peoples to pass this responsibility to the Justice portfolio.
The deputies also approved a controversial bill that establishes the ‘temporary framework’ thesis, which determines that the ancestral peoples will be expelled if they do not prove that they were in their territory before 1988.
The text is pending approval in the Senate. An important judgment on that thesis must be taken up this Wednesday by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), whose ruling will impact hundreds of indigenous lands pending demarcation.