Brasilia. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wants to send the police to the Amazon. The Policía Militar (PM) is supposed to support the environmental protection agency Ibama in the fight against illegal logging. The Brazilian government wants to provide new funds for this purpose. The money is not intended to benefit the responsible environmental protection authorities, but to finance the use of the PM in the rainforest. The government ignores the fact that previous military operations in the fight against illegal clearing have led to a further increase in clearing.
At the climate summit convened by US President Joe Biden in late April quit Bolsonaro proposes halving the country’s CO2 emissions by 2030. By this date, an end to illegal forest clearing should also be achieved. To do this, he wanted to double the funds for surveillance, the head of state promised in his online speech.
The deployment of the police in the rainforest as part of the national guard is intended to protect the controllers of the environmental authorities Ibama and ICMBio (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade) in the fight against loggers.
After the Bolsonaros government cut the two environmental protection agencies since taking office in 2019 and robbed most of their control mechanisms, it is now relying on reinforcements by the military and the police.
While Bolsonaro wants to provide almost 90 million reais (around 13.5 million euros) for the police operation, the Ministry of the Environment had to accept cuts of 35.4 percent of its budget this year. He cut Ibama four percent of their budget for the current year. Of the 1.65 billion reais (around 247 million euros), 30 percent must be approved by Congress. “That is absolutely inadequate,” criticized the former Ibama president and climate expert Suely Araujo. 110 million reais (16.5 million euros) are required for the 1,000 checks per year alone. Around 80 million reais are available The agency needed three times as many funds, Araujo explained.
The Ministry of the Environment had to accept cuts of around a third in 2020. At the same time, the Brazilian government sent the military in May 2020 to support the Ibama in the fight against illegal logging. The military operation “Verde Brasil 2” (Green Brazil 2) received a budget that was twice as high as that available to the environmental agency as a whole. The 2.5-month deployment of the 3,000 soldiers cost 120 million reais inside. “With that one could have paid the salaries of 1,000 Ibama inspectors for one year”, accounted for Araujo.
–
–
–
–
The use of the army proved not only costly, but also counterproductive. While illegal logging rose by 9.5 percent compared to the previous year and reached a record of 830 square kilometers in May 2020, the number of criminal offenses detected fell by 20 percent. Controllers from the environmental protection agency described the soldiers’ deployment as inefficient and obstructive. The structure of the army is too big. “The loggers are always warned”, explained an employee of Ibama.
Despite the negative findings, the Brazilian government is sticking to costly police operations and is thus one of the few remaining support groups for Bolsonaro to accommodate the security forces. As the military did last year, the police corps are registering very precisely how Bolsonaro is symbolically and financially upgrading them.
On the other hand, “the legislative project for Environment Minister Ricardo Salles plays a major role in replacing the Ibama”, warns Marcio Astrini, director of the NGO for climate monitoring, Observatório do Clima. “Since taking office, Salles has wanted to control all environmental protection operations; always knowing what and where is being checked, but which he never succeeded in doing,” said Astrini. If the police were given the same powers as Ibama or ICMBio, he could bypass them.
It was only on Monday that Salles jumped up to woodcutters again. “If you demonize the work of these entrepreneurs, you only provoke more clearings”, claimed Brazil’s Environment Minister. Just recently, Alexandre Saraiva, the head of investigations of the federal police against illegal timber trade, had reported Salles for obstructing environmental investigations, abuse of office and involvement in a criminal organization. Salles “directly supports the private interests of woodcutters and abuses the public administration”, explained Hail.
Saraiva had led an investigation that led to the largest illegal logging exposure in Brazilian history. “There will be no more clearing by 2030 because there is no forest”, ironized the now dismissed federal policeman Bolsonaro’s announcement at the US President’s climate summit.
– .
