WRITTEN QUESTION E-2726/99

by Laura González Álvarez (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(18 January 2000)

Subject: Deforestation in Amazonia

Without even consulting the National Environmental Council, the Brazilian government, together with the National Agricultural Council, the body representing rural landowners, has introduced a bill in the Senate to reform the Forestry Code. The press, NGOs and environmental associations such as the WWF have described the bill as an environmental crime. The bill provides, inter alia, for a general amnesty for all environmental crimes and authorises the destruction of native vegetation

in permanently protected areas, including hillsides and riverbanks, considered by conservationists as areas of supreme importance. If adopted, the law would worsen an already grim situation in which the forestry management plans drawn up by the Brazilian government are routinely not adhered to.

Furthermore, in its worldwide campaign on conservation in Amazonia, Greenpeace reports that every day an area of forest the size of 5 200 football pitches is destroyed, and that in 1998 alone 1 680 000 hectares of forest disappeared.

In accordance with commitments on climate change, and the agreements on environmental protection in Amazonia secured as part of the Rio Agenda, could the Commission intervene with the Brazilian authorities to ensure that the Forestry Code reform bill is amended so that agricultural and forestry-related activity is compatible with the conservation of the Amazonian forest, which belongs to the whole of humanity?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(2 February 2000)

The environment and the principle of sustainable development are central issues in the relationship of the Community with Latin America, with the subregional integration processes of Latin America and with the individual countries of Latin America. The Commission follows very closely the development of Brazilian policy in the field of the environment, which represents one of the priorities of our co-operation with Brazil, as specified in the Commission's country strategy paper on Brazil approved in 1998(1). To this end an environmental counsellor has been stationed at the Commission's delegation in Brasilia.

Concerning the bill for a new forestry code (Codigo Florestal), as presented in the Brazilian Congress by a group of congressmen from various parties, the proposal included a number of highly controversial points, namely the reduction of the proportion of territory protected by law and a change in the definition of the concept itself of natural reserve. Due to the lively debate created by this bill, and due to the opposition from members of the Brazilian Congress, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and parts of the government itself, the bill has been temporarily retired and will be discussed again in March when the Brazilian Congress convenes again in an ordinary session.

Inside the government, the Minister of Environment, Mr José Sarney Filho, expressed his opposition to the very controversial proposal. Minister Sarney decided already in April 1999 that the revision of the current forestry code should be lead by the National Council for the Environment (Conselho Nacional de Meio Ambiente), indicating that no decision by the government should be taken until this council pronounces on the conflicting issues.

Based on these circumstances, a specific intervention by the Commission is at this moment not being considered.

The problem behind this law is not a new one. Even though the Brazilian government appears to be seriously engaged in the protection of the environment, specifically in the Amazonian region, the compatibility of environmental policies with other public policies (in matters such as infrastructure, agrarian reform and use of land) is not always fully ensured.

The Commission fully supports an environmental policy based on the concept of sustainable development, whose main operational activity is the pilot programme for the conservation of the Brazilian rain forest (PPG7), a programme started in 1994 to which an amount of over 70 million has been devoted so far by the Commission (of a total of some 300 million granted by the international community, over 80 % of which is from Member States and the Commission). The conclusions of the recent participants' meeting of PPG7 held in Brasilia in October 1999 underlined the need to help the Brazilian authorities better to co-ordinate their public policies in order to maximise the effects of sustainable development activities and to make easier the incorporation of the lessons of the pilot programme in Brazilian policy.

(1) IB/1052/98 FR/EN.