Lula will launch a social program for the conservation of the Amazon: what does it consist of?

The plan includes financial aid for 30,000 families from the traditional communities that preserve this biome, although the government plans to expand it.

The government of leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will launch a social program with financial aid to vulnerable families who work in conservation from the Amazon jungle.

A similar program was repealed by the previous president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).

The program, called ‘Bolsa Verde’, an environmental version of the popular ‘Bolsa Familia’, will be implemented in 30,000 families in the Brazilian Amazonbut the government’s intention is to expand it to other biomes, such as the Cerrado (the Brazilian savannah) or the Atlantic Forest, all threatened by deforestation and other environmental crimes.

“These families will receive aid from the State as payment for the services they provide for the protection of the environment. Around 80% of forests protected of the world are under the control of these traditional communities. This has to do with the recognition of the role that these communities play in maintaining ecosystem services preserved,” Environment Minister Marina Silva said when announcing the program.

The government did not specify the amount of the subsidy or when the program will be launched, which will initially focus on families from traditional extractive communities, which they live from the jungle without cutting down trees and who are dedicated to the collection of fruits or plants to give them medicinal use.

Zero deforestation until 2030

This action is part of the measures announced last Monday by Lula to fulfill his promise to eliminate deforestation by 2030. The policy includes the creation of new environmental protection areas and contemplates the possibility that 50% of illegally deforested lands may be seized. .

In addition to returning resources withdrawn by the Bolsonaro administration to state environmental control agencies, Lula resumed, among other things, the demarcation of lands for indigenous peoples, considered the best ‘guardians of the jungle‘.

Recent defeats for Lula

But the president’s environmental plans suffered several recent setbacks in a Congress dominated by conservative forces, heavily weighted by the powerful agribusiness sector bench, a strong ally of Bolsonarismo.

Last week, legislators approved removing essential powers from the Environment and Indigenous Affairs portfolios.

The management of the cadastre was suppressed from the first portfolio, where all rural properties must be registered and which is used to map land invasions and control of deforested areas.

The second was stripped of the power to demarcate the lands of the original peoples to pass the competition to the portfolio of Justice.

The deputies also approved a controversial bill that establishes the “temporary framework” thesis, which determines that ancestral peoples are expelled if they do not prove that they were in their territory before 1988.

The text is pending approval in the Senate. An important trial on that thesis must be resumed this Wednesday by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), whose ruling will impact hundreds of indigenous lands pending demarcation.