Last Night

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reelected president of Brazil, launched last February The Program for the Acceleration of Growth - PAC, that involves a series of measures and investments in infrastructure that intends to boost the country’s economic growth. The strategy englobes infrastructure projects like the construction of dams. Among them, it includes the construction of two hydroelectric dams at Madeira River, at the north of the country, in the heart of the Amazon Forest: Jirau and Santo Antonio dams. Together, they will have an installed generating capacity of 6.450 MW and will flood 475 m2 of the forest with the highest biodiversity on the planet. It will destroy the habitat for fish, dolphins, parrots and a range of mammal species, and will directly affect the land and livelihoods of thousands of river bank dwellers and indigenous people.

A business estimated in 11,5 billions dollars. The Madeira River is one of the most important tributaries of the Amazon, with its basin covering about one quarter of the Brazilian Amazon. The river is rich in sediments it carries from the Andes. The Madeira supports the life of an estimated 750 fish species, 800 bird species, and other endangered rainforest wildlife, and is home to rubber tappers, Brazil nut gatherers, and fishermen.

It is IBAMA’s mission, created 18 years ago, to execute the public policies of environmental management in the country. Among it’s many attributions, the institute is responsible for the conservation of biodiversity, management of protected areas, environmental education, fiscalization and licensing of constructions of great impact, such as the dams to be constructed at Madeira River.

For the 500 years of unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, Brazil has reached a disastrous situation: destruction of 93% of the

Atlantic Rain Forest, one of the Earth’s most threatened biomas.

During the last 60 years, 57% of Cerrado was substituted by extensive pasture and large crop farms, and in the last 40 years, with the high speed Amazon occupation program, 20% of this bioma has been already degraded.

Nowadays, according to a research bought by the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC, published by Reuters agency, 87% of the Brazilian population are afraid of the consequences of the climate change, indicating the increasing interest and concern for environmental issues.

However, President Lula seems not to share the same feelings of the population that elected him, because he has been systematically deauthorazing and weakening the Brazilian environmental institutions that guarantee the respect to the national legislation and the fulfillment of the agreements and international conventions signed and ratified by Brazil.

President Lula made this position clear in a recent episode in which IBAMA did not grant permits for the Madeira River dams due to insufficient data plus serious errors and omissions in the environmental studies of the proponents project and required that additional studies be undertaken to evaluate the environmental impacts. Lula declared that the environment has been an obstacle to the development of the country: “if I could I would close IBAMA’s doors”, he said.

Brazilian legislation is complex, but still very clear: technical and scientific studies are required for any high impact project to be considered environmental viable or not. When suggesting some flexibility to IBAMA’s technical team, responsible for the licensing, the President not only makes a poor decision but strongly attacks the social-environmental conditions for survival of the future generations. IBAMA is not simply a guardian of the natural resources.

In the licensing process, it evaluates the social and environment costs and the benefits generated by the project. We recognize the need of an economic growth that gives priority to social inclusion, income distribution and environmental quality.

IBAMA judged as incomplete and technically inadequate some important aspects of the environment impact studies presented by the consortium, to give the permits for the Madeira dams. It was verified, for instance, that the area to be flooded by the hydroelectric dams is bigger than what was informed by the project proponents. Furthermore, it was not presented an adequate solution for the impact on migration of fishes, important food and income resources for the indigenous people. IBAMA also considered that this impact will affect the Bolivian territory. The problems highlighted in the 221 pages of the report made by IBAMA’s technical team were summarized by the president in the following statement: “Now it can not be because of the fishes, they threw the fishes on the president’s lap. What do I have to do with all of that? There has to be a solution”.

Unhappy for having an environmental institute competent and committed to the sustainable development of the country, Lula threatened with the following statement “Either we build the hydropower dams that we need, surpassing all the obstacles or we will enter into the era of nuclear energy”. It is important to mention that the obstacles listed by the president are the environmental law and the technicians that guarantee its fulfillment.

The first consequence of the presidential anger against IBAMA was the surprising autocratic attitude that intends to drastically change the institute structure. Through a Provisional Measure, legislative act questioned by the ones who defend the deepening of the democracy, it was created the Chico Mendes Institute, that will administrate the Conservation Units and the 15 centers specialized in biodiversity conservation.

It was left for IBAMA the federal authority to give permits to big constructions and the fiscalization. The Brazilian press has openly associated this presidential act to an attempt to put aside the environmental licensing process of the preservationist debate, in a way to make it easier to control the approvals, giving to this processes a pure development aspect. It will not surprise us if the speech regarding flexibility of the environmental legislation gets more space in Lula’s government agenda, leading Brazil to the wrong way in the environmental history of the globe.

While the world seriously discusses measures to reduce global warming and all its lethal consequences, President Lula make efforts to weaken the institutions of environmental protection defending development at any cost.