2024-03-20 20:41:54
The rapporteur of PL 364 at the CCJ, Lucas Redecker (PSDB-RS) | Vinícius Loures / Chamber of Deputies
Report updated at 10:50 on 3/21/2024.
With 38 votes, mainly from ruralists and Bolsonarists, against 18 from left-wing parties, the Chamber’s Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) approved, today (20), a bill (PL) that allows for the devastation of at least 48 millions of hectares of native fields alone, equivalent to the combined extensions of Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná.
If PL 364/2019 is approved, in practice, more than 50% of the Pantanal, 32% of the Pampas and 7% of the Cerrado could be removed from the map. Furthermore, 15 million hectares in the Amazon are also threatened – which represents more than 16 times the biome’s latest deforestation rate (2022-2023), of 900 thousand hectares. The data is from a technical note from SOS Mata Atlântica which analyzed the impacts of the project on natural countryside vegetation.
The PL was approved on a final basis, that is, it must go directly to the Senate. Representative Chico Alencar (PSOL-RJ), however, has already warned that he must present an appeal so that it passes through the Chamber plenary first. There, the request needs to be approved by a majority but the person who decides whether it will be voted on or not is the president of the house, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), an early partner of the ruralists.
The extent of native vegetation subject to suppression, however, is even greater, because the PL puts not only native fields at risk but any type of “non-forest” vegetation throughout Brazil.
“The proposal intends to revoke all protection of native non-forest vegetation, in force in Brazil since 1934, freeing it for widespread deforestation. The impact is abysmal in predominantly non-forest biomes, such as Pantanal, Cerrado, Caatinga and Pampa, but also will affect huge non-forest areas in the Amazon and Atlantic Forest”, warns the legal consultant of ISA Mauricio Guetta (Find out more in the box at the end of the news).
By proposing to change paragraph 2 of article 3 of the new Forest Code (Law nº 12,651/2012), the opinion of deputy Lucas Redecker (PSDB-RS) legalizes old deforestation of all “predominantly non-forest” vegetation throughout the country and allows its deforestation from now on, automatically. The report does this by classifying this type of vegetation cover, in advance, as a “consolidated rural area”, that is, already converted to agricultural use – even if it is in an original state of conservation (read below).
“Art. 3rd. § 2. In rural properties with predominantly non-forest native vegetation formations, such as general fields, high altitude fields and native fields, for the purposes of item IV of art. 3rd, pre-existing agroforestry activity on July 22, 2008 is considered human occupation, even if it did not involve the conversion of native vegetation, characterizing such locations, for all purposes of this Law, as a consolidated rural area.”
“Art.82-B. The provisions relating to the environmental regularization of rural properties provided for in this Law apply to the entire national territory and may cover facts prior to the enactment of this Law […].”
Opinion of PL 364/2029 by deputy Lucas Redecker (PSDB-RS)
Panel with final result and votes from parliamentarians from the CCJ session of the Chamber that approved PL 364 | Reproduction Youtube’False statement’
During the CCJ session, Redecker and other ruralists insisted that the project would affect a restricted type of vegetation, of little importance and in a geographically limited region. They even stated that the PL does not leave room to cut down “a single tree”.
“We are dealing with fields in consolidated areas”, repeated the rapporteur. “These are anthropized fields, that is, in those places where the field has not had human growth, has not had animal grazing with livestock, it will not fit into this (sic) project”, he continued.
“The statement that the text is limited to fields is false, as the expression ‘such as’, in the current wording, denotes that the types of vegetation mentioned ‒ general fields, high altitude fields and native fields ‒ are mere examples of the main content , which is non-forest vegetation in general”, explains Guetta.
“PL 364 is the biggest herd against all Brazilian biomes”, criticizes the director of public policies at Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, Malu Ribeiro. “It is a serious attack on the climate, water and biodiversity agendas, an attack on our natural heritage and which puts Brazil against the grain of the world”, she adds.
Ribeiro remembers that non-forest vegetation has great ecological importance. These ecosystems are essential for the maintenance of springs and aquifers, for example, and their destruction can put the water supply in several regions at risk.
Fields have an important ecological function, in the preservation of water sources, for example. Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park (GO) | Raul do Valle / ISAOriginal project
The original project by deputy Alceu Moreira (MDB-RS) aimed only to resolve a demand from farmers in some municipalities in Serra Gaúcha. Between 2016 and 2019, several of them were fined by Ibama for converting these areas to agricultural use. The idea was to regularize them from an environmental point of view. The proposal removed the protection granted by the Atlantic Forest Law (nº 11,428/2006) from “altitude fields”, applying the less restrictive rules of the Forest Code to them.
The ruralist group took advantage of the vote on the PL in the Chamber’s Environment Committee, at the end of 2022, to distort the initial objective and expand its impact on a national scale. After that, environmental organizations conducted a complex negotiation with mayors and rural producer entities in Rio Grande do Sul, to resume and adjust the original scope. Redecker disregarded the understanding, however.
Biomes and plant physiognomies in Brazil
The country is divided into six biomes: Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, Caatinga, Pampa and Pantanal. The biome is the set of ecosystems characterized by similar climates and vegetation physiognomies. As the most biodiverse nation in the world, we have a huge variety of them. O IBGE lists more than 30between different categories of forests, savannas, steppes and other landscapes in which trees, shrubs, grasses, marine influence, rivers and lakes predominate or combine, for example (see map below).
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