Assault on the environment
In the midst of political chaos, Congress continues to weaken environmental protections
Foto: Vinicius Mendonça / Ibama
The apparent paralysis in Congress on account of the latest political crisis that has gripped Brasília since the release of plea-bargain testimonies allegedly implicating President Michel Temer has not held back the passage of legislation to weaken the country’s environmental regulations.
As part of an assault on conservation areas, two provisional executive orders (nos. 756/2016 and 758/2016) were approved on Tuesday, May 23, reducing the size of four national parks. In practice, the orders liberate nearly 600,000 hectares are forest in the states of Santa Catarina and Pará, regions that are already marked by land conflicts and associated with land grabbing and illegal logging and mining.
“We are witnessing an unprecedented dismantling of our environmental legislation. Once again, economic interests are taking precedence over human rights and environmental protection, and the situation may get worse if Congress continues with its deregulatory drive, approving measures that further weaken the licensing process for large-scale projects,” said Caio Borges, coordinator of the Business and Human Rights program at Conectas.
In addition to shrinking the size of protected forests, the land of quilombola (maroon) communities earmarked for agrarian reform are also in the sights of the agribusiness caucus in Congress. Yesterday, May 24, the Agriculture, Food Supply and Rural Development Committee of the Lower House of Congress approved another two draft legislative decrees (nos. 240/2015 and 368/2016) revoking the demarcation of land for the Mormaça quilombola community in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and the expropriation of land from farms in the state of Goiás for purposes of land reform – both measures suspended decrees issued by the government of President Dilma Rousseff. The decrees will now proceed to the Constitution and Justice Committee of the house.
More rural violence
The unprecedented assault on environmental legislation in Congress reflects the climate of violence and insecurity in rural Brazil. According to information from the Brazilian Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission, 10 people were killed yesterday by the Military Police in the state of Pará during a police operation to repossess land. And May 19 marked a month since the massacre in Colniza, in the state of Mato Grosso, when nine agricultural laborers were brutally killed by a group of masked men.
“Rural violence, which every year beats new records and makes Brazil one of the most dangerous countries for human rights defenders, is closely associated with the maneuvers of the Executive and Legislative branches – under the silence of the Judiciary – to maintain an increasingly more unregulated and permissive environment for certain economic sectors,” said Juana Kweitel, executive director of Conectas.
“The news of another massacre of agricultural laborers, this time in Pará, is extremely serious and exposes the negligence with which rural violence is handled by the three branches of government, and in particular by the Ministry of Justice, which remains completely absent from the discussion,” she added.
