The Federal Police (PF) already has a set of information that it considers sufficient to charge at least four farmers with the start of fires in the Serra do Amolar region, in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso do Sul.
The MPF (Federal Public Ministry) will analyze the matter, and may or may not denounce those investigated to the Federal Court.
Based on satellite images from NASA (the US space agency) and Inpe (the National Institute for Space Research), PF experts found traces that would indicate human action in the burning of rural properties. The PF also collected testimonies from farmers and residents of the region that, according to researchers, make it difficult to defend farmers.
According to the analysis of the experts, the fires started on June 30, almost at the same time, in four properties located in the western region of the Paraguay River.
For the PF and MPF, this fact indicates that the practice of setting fire to vegetation to plant pastures may have been a combined action among farmers.
According to witnesses, days before sending their employees to set fire to the properties, the ranchers ordered the removal of all the cattle.
Farmers deny ordering fires
In the statements they gave to the PF, the peasants denied that they set the farms on fire. “We are going to demonstrate with satellite images from the police themselves that the fire did not start on my client’s farm. But unfortunately I have not yet had access to the investigation,” said the lawyer. Newley Amarilha, who defends the farmer Ivanildo da Cunha Miranda, owner of the Bonsucesso farm, one of the four properties where the fires occurred.
The column did not have access to the names of the other accused farmers.
Several firearms and ammunition were seized at one of the farms. The PF delegate leading the investigations, Daniel Rocha, told the Twitter that the operation began after a meticulous analysis of the satellite images made by experts from Brasilia that practically “gave the map of the fire’s trajectory.”
“When we flew over the region, I saw an image that I could never imagine. A sea of fresh water turned into smoke and fire.” The delegate awaits the transcript of the telephone conversations and the expert reports to conclude the investigation.
“We carried out the expertise on the properties and we have indications that the fires were started in order to create new areas of pasture,” said Rocha.
Homeowners must be prosecuted for damage to permanent preservation areas and conservation units, fire and contamination. The penalties provided for in the legislation, added together, can reach 15 years in prison.
Jaguar leg injured by fires in the Encontro das Águas Park region, in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso
Image: Image provided to UOL
The fire still spreads through the Pantanal
Three months later, fires in the region continue to cause damage. This Wednesday (23), the fire reached the Pantanal National Park and the corridor that connects the Serra do Amolar with the Encontro das Águas Park, in Mato Grosso, considered the largest refuge for jaguars in the world.
“Unfortunately, four cats were left with their feet injured,” said retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Military Police, Angelo Rabelo, president of the Homem Pantaneiro Institute, which works to fight fires. The fire also spread to the region of the great lagoons on the border between Brazil and Bolivia.
PF experts also concluded that the fires ended up destroying the riparian forests that protect the Paraguay River and its tributaries. Since they started, the fires have already destroyed 30,000 hectares of forest in the region.
The suspicion of the participation of the peasants came to light on September 14, when the PF unleashed the so-called Operation Matáá (“fire” in the language of the Guató indigenous people who live in the region, according to the Police). Federal agents seized the cell phones of ten farmers in Campo Grande and Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul.
Police investigate other fires
In another investigation front, experts from the Mato Grosso do Sul Military and Civil Police also concluded that there was human action in the fires that occurred in the Nhecolândia farms (central region of the Pantanal). The police are awaiting the final report to impose fines and prosecute the farmers.
“Forensics made it clear that the fire originated on the farms and was caused by man and drought,” said Lt. Prime Minister Anderson Ortiz, who commanded inspections on the farms.
The farmers investigated in Nhecolândia and Serra do Amolar have one characteristic in common: they are heirs or investors who came from other regions of the country. For the researchers, the change in the profile of the farm owners ended up damaging the harmony between livestock and nature in the Pantanal.
“The pantaneiro follows the natural cycle of floods, when cattle are removed from flooded areas. Traditional swamps don’t burn bushes to plant grasses because they don’t even have money to buy the fertilizer, ”says Arnildo Pott, professor at UFMS (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul) and PhD in plant ecology at the University of Queensland, Australia. who has worked in the Pantanal for more than 40 years.
