Forest Code (Translation) https://media.causes.com/ribbon/1111509

Code Forest 'back to the past' colonial

Mais que opor ruralistas e ambientalistas, a nova legislação sobre áreas rurais faz reacender disputas por terra no interior do país

Alice Melo

15/6/2011

The debate around the design of the new Forest Code further intensified the longstanding rivalry between environmental and rural inland Brazil. While environmental advocates protested and agribusiness entrepreneurs applauded the House of Representatives approved the text of the Parliamentary Aldo Rebelo (PC do B / SP) on May 25. Compounding the stress, the same day that the project was voted in Brasilia, a couple of extractive work denouncing illegal logging was murdered in Para, illustrating the historical context of violence in the country whose main actor is theimpunity of corrupting the forest.

At this point, it is only the Senate to decide the direction of the Brazilian forests: challenge or pass the baton to the presidency? That is the question. Given the impasse, the question rises, as well as the questions: what does the project after the new code?

In a text published in the newspaper "O Estado de Sao Paulo", on June 8, Aldo Rebelo explains that "the central objective of the new Forest Code is to let the farmer working in peace and harmony with the environment," so that we can reconcile conservation and economic growth. Representative ensures that, based on new legislation, it is "possible to face the illegality of much of the agriculture and livestock because of the restrictions, with a minimum of creativity that enables states, within the current requirements, preserve the minimum percentage of each biome, adapting to local conditions, the model of land use and structure of land ownership. "

The way in which the project tries to make that call "harmony" is stiff opposition in the scientific and acadênico, especially with respect to the mutability of Permanent Protection Areas (PPAs) - as tops and mountain slopes and river banks - and fines to the suspension of the farmer deforested up to July 2008 - if it accedes to the Programme for the Environment (PRA).

"It allows the consolidation of irregular occupation of hillsides, exposes the people who occupy these areas risks, exposes the soil and water contamination," says Carlos Rittel, program coordinator of climate change and energy conservation group WWF Brazil (http:/ / www.wwf.org.br/). "The Forest Code but need to be modernized, but in order to enable them to comply with the code and oversee the production sector. We can not miss the main objective is to protect our forests. This is not an agricultural development code is a code of sustainable development of forest, "he adds.

The damage caused by the adoption of the new standard also beyond the scope ofenvironmental and come under political and social. Speaking to History Magazine(read the full interview here), the historian Beatriz Regina Guimarães Neto, a professor at Federal University of Pernambuco, alert to the escalation of conflicts in the field as possible before the impunity granted by the code - which delegated to states and municipalities the power to decide on the areas of APPs in their respective regions. With that power located in the local bodies, would further increasethe corruption of the interests of the environment on the desire to loggers andlandowners, who have great influence on policy in the interior of Brazil.

"Reappear ghostly scenes of a 'return to the past' colonial, with traders making agreedy rich land recently discovered a large outlet. Today, we witness theagribusiness that is devastating our forests and savannas and may even, evenanalogous to the use of slave labor. But, as before, they lack their own farmers 'sense of citizenship,' "says the researcher, who still uses a phrase from Professor JoseMurilo de Carvalho, director of RHBN to illustrate the political situation in the north,"the power of government [ends] at the gates of the big farms. "

The assassination of leaders extractive Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria da Silva of the Holy Spirit on the day of the vote on the bill of the new code is for thehistorian, a symbolic fact that must be seen as a violation of the democratic state, "is the certainty of impunity. ""It is a statement of power segments, to organize themselves into consortia to hire gunmen criminals, send clear signals that the state has no power to govern them. It is a situation that has the articulation of a political oligarchy and their representatives in Congress, which traditionally has the control of land, of men andwomen workers, "he says.

For her, the solution is to mobilize civil society and press the Senate to the Code isrevised. "We can not naturalize these barbaric acts and never think that this is 'far fromus,'" and concludes: "The political machinery strives to convince Brazil in the XXI century, then in the opposite direction of the stimulus to life on planet Earth ".

Understand the design of the new Forest Code:
The Forest Code is the legislation that outlines the standards of environmental preservation in rural properties, sets out what may or may not be used by small and large farmers and people linked to field activities. The text of Mr Rebelo was approved in July 2010 but took almost a year for the House to debate their points andapprove the final design, which I believe is now in the Senate. If approved by the Senate, the rule comes into the hands of the Presidency, which may or may not use the veto to make it return to the Board for adjustment.

The new text provides that small farmers are free to recover the forest cleared within four fiscal modules, representing an area of ​​40 acres to a hundred - depending on the state. That was the point of contention in both the House, and for environmentalists, as well as the passage that refers to the Permanent Protection Area.

At this point, the new text consolidates some crops in APPs, such as coffee andorange, without the need to reconstruct the nature deforested. Also, leave it to thestates the definition of what may or may not be grown in these areas. The government is against the decentralization of regulation.

Another point of contention is with regard to amnesty for those who deforested up to July 2008. The text-based Rebelo provides for the suspension of penalties to producers who enroll in the Programme for the Environment, which outlines newconservation actions within the new standard. If the farmer does not strictly follow thePRA, you must pay the fines amnesty at first. The government is against, likeenvironmentalists. The latter argue that this may cause deforestation is further helpedon strengthening impunity.