[ad_1]
BRASILIA – O Ibama He ordered that all the firefighting agents of the environmental agency in the field in the country return immediately to their bases starting at midnight on Thursday 22. The order came from the Directorate of Environmental Protection, which operates the Center. National System for Prevention and Fight against Forest Fires. Currently, there are about 1,400 agency agents in action against fires throughout Brazil.
In a letter, Ricardo Vianna Barreto, head of the Ibama Prevfogo Specialized Center, determines “the collection of all IBAMA Forest Fire Brigades to their respective bases of origin, starting at 00:00 (zero hour) on the 22nd” . October 2020, where they must remain awaiting orders for operational action in the field ”. The document was sent to all the agency’s bases at 7:31 p.m. and reaches those that operate in all regions of the country, including the Pantanal and the Amazon.
Ibama faces an arm wrestling with Ministry of Economy and affirms that the agency has ensured the financial execution of Ibama’s budget. At the end of August, the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, came to report that, due to the financial blockades of Ibama and the Chico Mendes Institute (ICMBio), all operations to combat illegal deforestation would be interrupted in both regions and also in the rest of the country.
The strike became official, but a few hours later the government returned. Vice President Hamilton Mourão even declared that there was no blockade and that Salles had rushed. Dear, Ibama did not comment on this until the closing of this text. Salles was also contacted about the report, but has not yet commented.
THE Status He discovered that the Ministry of the Environment even went to the Ministry of Economy and questioned the resources, but there were no signs of release. The report had access to a letter that the director of Planning, Administration and Logistics of Ibama, Luis Carlos Hiromi Nagao, sent this Wednesday the 21st to the boards of directors of Ibama. He writes: “Given the current situation reported (…) and considering that the negotiations with the higher bodies to solve the problem have not yet taken effect, I announce the unavailability of economic resources to close the current month, and it is not possible to proceed with the payment of expenses of that municipality “.
The Ministry of Economy did not comment on this either. At this time, there is an outstanding debt of at least R $ 16 million with the area covered only by Prevfogo, as it was discovered in the report.
Loss of burned areas is the largest since 2012
Data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) show that, between January and September of this year, Brazil, with all its biomes, has not lost so many areas due to fires since 2012. In the first nine months of this year, the national territory they lost 226 thousand km² due to fire, exceeding the alarming rate of the same period last year, when 224 thousand km² were devastated by flames.
The Pantanal, the most affected biomes in 2020, lost 32,910 km² between January and September, almost triple the 12,948 km² in the same interval in 2019. The Amazon lost 62,311 km², compared to 59,826 last year. Fire outbreaks, updated daily, show that the fire remains strong. In these 21 days of October, 2,687 fire sources were registered in the wetland, exceeding the volume registered during the 31 days of October 2019, which had 2,430 sources.
The climate between Ricardo Salles and the military wing of the government, which today leads environmental actions in the Amazon, through Operation Brazil Verde 2, has never been the best. MMA feels sloppy when the issue is the distribution of funds and demands a government counterpart.
In August, when asked about Salles’ decision to suspend operations in the Amazon, the Vice President of the Republic, Hamilton Mourão, who also chairs the Amazon Legal Council, said that Salles was too quick. Mourão said the government has reduced the resources of the ministries to pay emergency aid to informal workers during the pandemic, but guaranteed that environmental actions would not be affected.
“The minister hurried, he did. What’s going on? The government is looking for resources to be able to pay for emergency aid, that’s what I conclude. So it is taking resources from all the ministries. Every ministry offers what it can offer, right? ”Mourão said, at the time. “The appeal is open, it is not blocked,” said the deputy.
Salles responded to the comment. “Of course there was (the blockade). The block was done. And we could not accept that ”, said the minister, on that occasion.
Amazon Fund. Although Ibama has budgetary resources paralyzed by Paulo Guedes’ portfolio, the truth is that the agency has money released in programs of the Amazon Fund, financed by the governments of Norway and Germany, which it simply does not access.
The Profisc 1 program has the function of “supporting Ibama’s environmental inspection and deforestation control activities in the Legal Amazon”. Approved in April 2018, it is valid until April 2021. With R $ 140 million released for use, Ibama has used only R $ 77 million to date and, this year, only R $ 10.2 million were withdrawn in July. Ibama did not request any new access to the resource.
[ad_2]
