Brazil to Fund $10.5 Million Restoration of Atlantic Forest

Brazil to Fund $10.5 Million Restoration of Atlantic Forest

Posted Jan. 5, 2018, 12:19 PM

Brazil's government will spend 34 million real ($10.5 million) on projects to restore the native Atlantic Forest in one of the 17 coastal states through which it runs.
This fragmented tropical and subtropical woodland has dwindled to 12.5 percent of its original size of more than 500,000 square miles, making it Brazil's most degraded and endangered biome. Despite being banned, deforestation is on the rise there.
IBAMA, the enforcement arm of the Environment Ministry, signed an agreement in December with the nonprofit Social-Environmental Institute (ISA) that requires the agency to provide 34 million reais from future fines it collects to projects that win public tenders to restore the Atlantic Forest in southern Santa Catarina state.

The agreement stems from a lawsuit that the institute filed against IBAMA in 2000, alleging that its office in Santa Catarina state illegally authorized the cutting of the Atlantic Forest to harvest endangered species such as the critically endangered Parana pine, a high-value softwood.

Brazil's Supreme Court in 2016 upheld a series of lower-court rulings in the institute's favor and ordered the government to fund restoration efforts. The December agreement sets up the process by which the government will comply with that ruling.

Public Auctions

IBAMA agreed to hold public auctions in July 2018 and July 2020. Each will award 17 million reais ($5.25 million) in IBAMA-collected fines to the project that best uses them to recover native Atlantic Forest in that state.

"The agreement between IBAMA and ISA shows that, through the Brazilian court system, it's possible to correct illegalities that result in environmental damage, in this case by recovering native Atlantic Forest in Santa Catarina state," lawyer Mauricio Guetta told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 3.

But Gustavo Oliveira, IBAMA's forestry coordinator, told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 4 that "IBAMA committed no cutting-authorization illegalities in that state."

"IBAMA contended during all court proceedings that it only authorized the legal harvesting of tree species in managed forests, where cutting is selective," Oliveira said. "But because this agency must comply with the judgment of those courts, we entered into an agreement with ISA, one whose replanting requirements, in particular of threatened species, will benefit the Atlantic Forest."

https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/brazil-to-fund-105-milli…

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