How Brazil's 'devastation bill' puts Amazon at risk of deforestation

RIO DE JANEIRO - As Brazil prepares to host the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém in November, President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva is under pressure to veto a measure that could have a huge impact on the world's largest tropical rainforest.

The bill, according to critics, would dismantle the environmental licensing process in Brazil, home to the biggest share of the Amazon rainforest.

Dubbed the "devastation bill" by those who see it as Brazil's worst setback in environmental law since the country's democratic turn four decades ago, the legislation was passed in the Senate earlier this year and in the Lower House last week.

Environmentalists criticize Lula for not doing enough to stop the bill from moving forward and not challenging the powerful agribusiness caucus.

Leading ministers have supported the measure as well, despite vocal opposition from Environment Minister Marina Silva.

The conservative majority in Congress has enough seats to overturn a presidential veto, and the bill is likely to go before Brazil's Supreme Court, where its legality can be questioned, as legal experts and Brazil's Ministry of Environment deem it unconstitutional.

Here's what you need to know:

How does the bill alter Brazil's environmental licensing?

The bill loosens several permitting requirements.

For example, under the proposed rules, medium-impact projects would be automatically approved through a "self-licensing process" - a benefit previously limited to low-impact activities.

Companies would have to fill out an on-line form and declare their commitments to meet environmental requirements.

A 2021 analysis from Indigenous rights group Instituto Socioambiental and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)  concluded that, if the changes were to occur, 86% of the mining projects waiting for a go-ahead in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil's mining powerhouse, could be allowed to self-license.

The bill also creates a "special environmental licence" for projects deemed "strategic," regardless of any potentially adverse environmental impact, allowing them to benefit from a one-year deadline for approval.

The deadline could speed up contentious projects that may have been debated for years or even decades.

Government agencies specialising in Indigenous and African-descent populations would weigh in on impact-risk assessments only if projects affect fully recognised territories.

Licensing for obtaining environmental permits in other categories of protected areas would be allowed to proceed without consultation with the environmental agencies that manage them.

A report issued in April by Instituto Socioambiental said 3,000 protected areas could be affected, including more than 30% of Indigenous territories, and 80% of "quilombola" African-descent territories, many of which have been waiting decades to be fully recognised.

Who is backing the bill, and who is opposing it?

The bill has harnessed huge support in Brazil's Congress, backed by the dominant agribusiness caucus and mining sector.

Lula has been criticized by environmentalists for not making any public statement against the bill nor any visible efforts to keep it from moving forward, and the Mines and Energy, Transportation and Agriculture ministers have shown support for it.

Environment Minister Marina Silva, on the other hand, has described the bill as a major setback that "severs" and "buries" environmental licensing in Brazil.

Which projects could benefit from the bill?

The Instituto Socioambiental report analysed the potential effect of the bill on 75 federal infrastructure projects launched in Amazon states in 2023.

It concluded the bill would lift protections on more than 18 million hectares (44.5 million acres) of forests safeguarded by existing rules, an area about the size of Uruguay.

The bill could help unlock controversial projects in the vast rainforest and other natural areas such as the state-run oil firm Petrobras' bid to drill for oil in the mouth of the Amazon river, which environmentalists say could unleash an oil rush in the region.

The proposed permitting rules could also speed up the repaving of the BR-319, an 885-km (550-mile) road across one of the best preserved tracts of Brazil's Amazon, and the Ferrogrão railway, 976-km (606-mile) rail system backed by international traders to transport grains through the forest for exports.    

All backed by Lula, these projects that have faced licensing and legal hurdles for years are expected to allow access to untouched Amazon areas and drive deforestation if given the go-ahead.

What could this mean for nature and climate?

Brazil was the world's sixth largest carbon emitter in 2023, according to data from the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global nonprofit research group.

Most emissions are due to clearing natural vegetation, including forests, to make way for farms as well as methane emissions from Brazil's 240 million strong cattle herd, according to data from Brazil's Climate Observatory SEEG system.  

This positions Brazil as a leading emitter, ahead of major industrialised economies such as the United Kingdom or Germany.

Scientists say deforestation and degradation are compounding the effects of climate change and turning vast swathes of the Amazon rainforest into drier, degraded ecosystems akin to savannahs.

Degradation and rising temperatures are already fuelling record wildfires and tree mortality, accelerating carbon emissions, climate change and further forest loss.

(Reporting by Andre Cabette Fabio; Editing by Anastasia Moloney and Ellen Wulfhorst.)