The Terra Legal Amazônia, a program addressing the legal ownership of land in the Amazon, launched last year and coordinated by the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA), has been the focus of controversy involving an increase of irregular land occupation within federal estates in the Amazon Rainforest. Incra employees state that in Apuí, south of Amazonas, there are already people expanding their illegal settlements from 500 up to 1,500 hectares expecting the advantage of obtaining a larger portion of land, thanks to the licitation-free regulation determined by the program’s own rules, an initiative of the federal government.

The denouncement was published by Paulo Barreto, a researcher of Imazon, in his blog called Amazônia Sustentável. “Unfortunately, what we had foreseen in our work is actually occurring: Terra Legal is encouraging more appropriations of illegal, public land (...).” he warned. “I hope that supervising agencies such as the Federal Prosecutor’s Office investigate the situation in the south of Amazonas and eventually in other regions too”, he stated in his website.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Amazonas told our reporters that no investigation to that effect is being carried out in the state due to the lack of any formal denouncement on that account. According to the agency’s press relations, denouncements can be made through the website: www.pram.mpf.gov.br or in person, at the Federal Prosecutor’s head office, in Manaus.

Meanwhile, in Apuí...

“Some people are already delimiting their land and encompassing yet more, expecting the legalization of their properties. This has become more intense after the appearance of Terra Legal, but the increase in deforesting and irregular occupations cannot be attributed directly to the program, though it can yes, be a factor that has contributed to accelerate the process”, says Gabriel Carrero, a master by the Amazon’s National Research Institute (Inpa) and a researcher of the Amazon’s Conservation and Sustainable Development Institute (Idesam).

“The positive side of Terra Legal is the fact that the government acknowledges that this is a problem that must be solved. Regularization is a necessity, but it must be done in a safe way. The current system is extremely confusing and its methodology distorted”, says Paulo Barreto, from Imazon. (Check out the box below to learn more about the Terra Legal program and click here to understand the controversial points on the implementation of the program).

He believes that, while a combination of Terra Legal + an infrastructure promised by the government stands, there will be irregular occupation and deforesting in the Amazon Rainforest. “Regularization is essential to improve control over deforesting; however it cannot be so generous as to encourage new land occupation – especially when combined with promises of waving away fines. There is always the belief that land allowed to be occupied today can become legal property tomorrow. And this intensified occupation will, sooner or later, lead to more deforesting”, says he.

“The idea that people are occupying land and deforesting is true. The price of land in Apuí is low. The ‘settle-deforest-and-wait for the land to value’ cycle is regarded as an investment by deforesters. Forests are felled with the expectation that the cleared land it will be valued and legalized in the future”, adds Gabriel. He believes that inspections must be increased. “The state is weak in the implementation of the Law, in the execution of command and control policies. There must be more people in the field. The Terra Legal program can be beneficial to many people, but at the same time it offers loopholes. It solves some problems while creating others”.


One of the program’s greatest controversies is with regard to the prices charged for the land. Appropriations with a total area of one fiscal module (about 100 ha) will not cost a cent to the rural squatter. Imazon specialists say that “the offer of free land makes it more profitable to trespass and deforest new areas than invest in increasing the productivity of areas already opened up”. For up to four fiscal modules, prices will be below market values, with payment eased over up to 20 years. The value of the hectare under consideration can vary according to the market price established for each region.

Marcelo Afonso, of Terra Legal, says that in extreme cases, the hectare will cost no more than from R$ 50 to R$ 2,300. The average for the great majority, according to him, will lie between R$ 200 and R$ 600. However, if the property is a small one, with difficult access and has been in use for many years, the settler will pay only 10% of its minimum value. In other words, one hectare of public land in the Amazon Rainforest may be sold for about R$ 5. About the price of, say, bananas.

Frauds found

Terra Legal’s History The Terra Legal project was created by the government of President Lula aiming at performing land regularization in the Amazon Rainforest, a region in which the majority of public state and federal lands are illegally occupied using fake ownership deeds recorded in notary offices (the notorious practice of rural squatting). All this began thanks to the policies of former President Emilio Médici who, back in the 70s, launched a campaign to draw people into the region with the slogan “a land without people for people without land”. His legacy translates into 53% of the territory of Legal Amazon suffering the effects of uncertainty over the right to property. This vagueness hinders economic development, environmental management and the rights of local inhabitants, worsening social problems. Between 1999 and 2008, 5,380 land-related conflicts occurred in the Amazon Rainforest, involving 2.7 million people and causing 253 murders. To try and solve the problem, the federal government issued Provisional Measure #458 in February 2009, nicknamed the “PM of Squatting” by environmental groups since it deals with the donation and sale of public land in the Amazon. Regardless of all the controversy involving this PM, it was converted, with very few changes, into Law 11.952 on June 25, 2009. According to Deborah Duprat, substitute attorney-general of the Republic, the law “introduced unjustifiable privileges in favor of rural squatters that, in the past, took illegal ownership over vast expanses of public lands”. The law’s implementation began to be undertaken by the Terra Legal program that intends to regularize some 300 thousand settlers who illegally occupied state and federal land up to December 2004. Areas must be characterized by a consolidated occupation in order to receive the deed of ownership and one of the main conditions is that some subsistence activity be conducted on the land – from livestock breeding to agriculture. In up to five years, 67 million hectares, the equivalent to 13.42% of the Legal Amazon (or roughly fifteen times the size of the state of Rio de Janeiro), should be legalized – to this moment 293 estates have been legalized, the equivalent of a little more than 79 thousand hectares.

Marcelo Afonso Silva, planning director of the Terra Legal program, admits to having found fraud schemes in Apuí. “We identified front men, the selling of CPFs (Brazil’s Individual Taxpayer Identity cards) and even records aiming at obtaining false legitimacy over vast areas”, says he. He explains that squatters that receive the deed of ownership will not be forgotten by the program. “It is possible that some irregularities get through but this is a monitoring process over up to 20 years. Any improper use will be detected in time to be remedied. If we do identify any fraud, we will be able to take legal action and revert the entire process”.

In the Amazon Rainforest, already six thousand ownership claims have been placed – 400 of which are in Apuí. Luiz Antonio Nascimento de Souza, coordinator of land regularization for the program in Amazonas, explains that most of those are below 400 hectares and that the first legalized deeds of ownership in Apuí will be given in a year’s time.

According to Marcelo Afonso, those who have been deforesting further to take advantage of licitation-free legalizations up to 15 fiscal modules can end up on the losing side. “To enlarge one’s land from 500 to 1,500 hectares means that the new area is not consolidated as it has not been in use for a long time. If that has been occurring, then it is not part of the legalization focus proposed by Terra Legal. If the squatter claims that he has had that property for years, he will have to prove it”, said he. 

The settlement of Juma River

It is said that Apuí, with an area of 5,210,000 ha, came into being thanks the creation of the Settlement Program of the Juma River (PARJ) by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), in 1982. It is the largest in the country and answers for up to 74% of the municipality’s deforesting. Another problem related to the settlement is with regard to the regularization of allotments. “There are 690 thousand ha and, 28 years after its creation, only 17.6% have been certified”, explains Gabriel Carrero.

Within such a scenario, a partnership between Incra and Terra Legal was born. “It came from the need to hold back the deforesting of PARJ while also organizing the regularization of allotments”, explains Adriana Lima, from the development division of Incra-AM. During more than 120 days, teams went into the field to collect information on the settling. In July, a 400-page report was sent to Brasilia that will bring up, among other issues, the possibility of reducing the project’s area or to terminate it once and for all so that Terra Legal can get on with its land regularization task for properties up to four fiscal modules in the region.

But will this partnership help hold back the deforesting and illegal occupation that has been going on in Apuí? “When you have identity cards and taxpayer cards involved, it’s another matter altogether. To regulate is to attribute responsibility”, says the program’s press relations.

Learn more about this subject

- The dynamics of deforesting and consolidation of rural properties on the border of agriculture and farming expansion in the southwest of the Amazon Rainforest. Click here to read the article in PDF format.

- Law 11.952

- Terra Legal website

- O Estado da Amazônia Report, by Imazon
2009: 
2010: 

- Unconstitutionality Direct Action of Law 11.952 proposed by Deborah Duprat to Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) in July 2009
 


Karina Miotto is a journalist graduated from PUC-SP. As a free-lancer for the Abril Group, she loves to travel and ended up in the Amazon Rainforest where she began working for Greenpeace and writing for Terra da Gente and National Geographic magazines. She is the author of the Eco-Repórter-Eco blog and a correspondent of ((o)) eco Amazonia.