If amnesty for deforesters is not removed from the text that alters Brazil’s Forest Code, the destruction of the Amazon can become out of hand. This opinion was voiced by ecologist Philip Fearnside of the Amazonian National Research Institute (INPA), a research entity connected to Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Technology. Brazil’s House of Representatives approved last Tuesday 24, a bill that alters the rules for the protection of forests throughout the country, making it more permissive and also granting pardon for deforestation crimes committed up to 2008.

According to Fearnside, all of the changes included in the proposal’s relater, Congressman Aldo Rebelo from Brazil’s Communist Party, open up the path to more deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest but somehow, enforces some limits. “No amnesty, because it opens the door to deforestation to the last tree”, he laments. “They will continue to fell trees in the hope that it will be pardoned and there will be no end to this. They will simply wait for yet another reform of this Forest Code or another amnesty”, he competes.

Fearnside has been conducting studies on the impacts of major projects in the Amazon since the 70s and has been noted as the world’s second most mentioned scientist when it comes to subjects about this region. For him, these changes affect Brazil’s image abroad because it compromises the goals the country itself set to achieve during international climate change negotiations. Brazil intends to reduce its carbon emissions in up to 38.9% by 2020. But this commitment is seriously threatened: the encroaching deforestation in 27% this year in the Amazon has been connected to the expectations that this Forest Code will be approved and that transgressors will be pardoned.

The scientist reminds us that aside from amnesty itself, the proposal approved by Congress will alter the manner in which the jungle that protects Amazonian rivers is measured. He quotes a study conducted by Brazil’s Academy of Sciences that due to the simple change made to this measuring basis, the protection of riverbanks in the Amazon can be reduced in 60%. Fearnside highlights the importance of riparian forests which are important corridors for the migration of animals and plants that enable biodiversity in fragmented mosaics. And, of course, they help to avoid floods.

Problems beside amnesty

The approved Code exempts owners of up to 4 rural modules (a measurement that varies a great deal throughout the country) from maintaining a Legal Reserve. Legal Reserves are a device within Brazil’s Forest Code that enforces owners to maintain a portion of their property covered with native vegetation. In the Amazon, this reserve should be of 80% of the property. Congressman Aldo Rebelo’s argument is that such a device in the law blocks the success of small producers in the Amazon.

Brazil’s Academy of Sciences defends a legislation of exception for family farming, but to use the rural module as a means of distinction is a risky path to follow. In some places in the Amazon this rural module equals 100 hectares. Aside from that, there’s the fear that major properties will be fractioned in order to fit this loophole. This is not difficult at all. In Apui, southern Amazonas, for example, a study by Inpa showed that one same family is the owner of 38 lots, each one with 100 hectares.

Biologist Rita Mesquita, also from Inpa, says it is unfortunate that federal congressmen did not base their opinions on technical and scientific arguments during the discussions around the code. “Did you know that 61 million hectares that have been deforested and degraded in the country can become productive, including for the agribusiness?”, asks the researcher. “Now we are going to hand over our biodiversity and our natural resources for multinationals to set in, in exchange of cheap land and slave labor.”

She considers that an inversion took place during these discussions on what would really be positive for Brazil and what would be aligned with foreign interests. “Brazilian society is being fooled when they say that preservation is international, as if agribusinesses were not in the hands of international companies. I would say that agribusiness is international and conservation is Brazilian”, she adds.

Brazilian Academy of Sciences

In a note disclosed this Thursday, May 26, Brazil’s Academy of Sciences (ABC) and Brazil’s Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC) proposed to the federal government a two-year deadline in order to build a new Forest Code. Both institutions classify as brash the decision made by federal congressmen, since they did not take into account scientific and technological aspects in approving the law’s proposal.

The note, that considers the need to revise the law of 1965, states that Parliament never formally invited ABC or SBPC for discussions on the substitutive approved. It also says that two letters had been sent to congressmen and to the presidential candidate warning of this need for more time and more in-depth discussions on the topic of the Forest Code.

Both institutions also made it clear that they are still at the disposal of the Senate to discuss the new code. The note also leaves no doubt that criticisms to the Code have no connection with environmentalist or ruralists movements, but rather that they are made in the name of the country’s sustainability. ABC and SBPC created in July last year a Workgroup to discuss changes in environmental laws. The proposals were made into a book issued in March this year.

The letter also acknowledges the contribution of agribusiness towards the production of food and Brazil’s trade balance, but it highlights that the increasing of agribusiness must occur without damages to the preservation and conservation of the country’s natural resources.

What specialists have to say ““From now on, the Legal Reserve can change to 50% in many States and contain exotic species. In other words, in practice the Legal Reserve will change from 80%, not to 50%, but to 25%. What we are actually saying is that 55% can be legally deforested. This is what this Code is preparing for the Amazon” Jean Paul Metzguer, professor of the University of São Paulo (USP) “If Dilma Rousseff does not veto anything in the Code, as approved by the House of Representatives, there’s a risk of increased deforestation. The feeling of impunity shows that deforestation can continue. The president must enter the game because she hasn’t until now” Paulo Barreto, researcher of the Man and Environment of the Amazon Institute (Imazon) “The voting of this Code and its approval as it is, with regard to the Amazon, represents the loss of a fantastic potential capable of improving the lives of most of the regional population, as well as the loss of vast riches for Brazil” Bertha Becker, professor emeritus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and member of Brazil’s Academy of Sciences “Brazil is an unfair country. It does not deserve the blood shed by Brazilians that protect its forests. The approval of the new Forest Code on the same day in which two extractivism leaderships were murdered rekindles the same causes that led to the assassination of Chico Mendes, deforestation within inhabited and protected portions of the forest. It is urgent to find a balance between the environment and agriculture in order to avoid widespread conflicts in the Amazon.” Mary Allegretti, anthropologist and visiting professor of the universities of Yale, Chicago, Florida and Wisconsin-Madison, in the US. *with collaboration by Karina Miotto