Congress threatens half a million hectares of Protected Areas in new anti-environmental attack

Folha identified ten anti-environmental texts that have been approved or have had their processing accelerated since May. In the middle of that month, deputies mobilized around issues of interest to agribusiness. The mobilization became known among congressmen and environmentalists as “Agro Week”, organized by the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA) and the president of the house, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB).

Of the bills, five attempt to reverse or reduce Conservation Units and Indigenous Lands. The texts also make it difficult to monitor environmental crimes and their punishments and open space for deforestation. In short, a “herd” passing under the blessing of the “noble” parliamentarians.

The most recent parliamentary anti-environmental crusade took place last Thursday (2/7). While the population was paying attention to the football World Cup, deputies approved the emergency regime for processing Bill No. 2,898/2025. The PL, authored by deputy Lúcio Mosquini (MDB-RO), uses supposed “protection” for family farming to weaken the fight against deforestation.

The previous day, the Chamber had already approved the urgency regime for a bill that aims to eliminate a land area of 30 thousand hectares from the Baleia Franca Environmental Protection Area (APA), in Santa Catarina. Created in 2000, the APA includes land and sea areas and protects at least four species of animals threatened with extinction: the right whale, the loggerhead turtle, the green turtle and the porpoise. In vain, ICMBio issued an opinion contrary to the text.

The plenary also approved the accelerated process for a PL that suspends the demarcation of the Toldo Imbu and Morro dos Cavalos TIs, with almost 2 thousand hectares each. Located in Santa Catarina, the Indigenous Lands were approved by President Lula at the end of 2024, but are the target of questions based on the infamous time frame law, a thesis already overturned by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

The text was included on the agenda minutes before voting began in the plenary and took congressmen against the proposal by surprise, such as Sonia Guajajara (PSOL-SP), former minister of Indigenous Peoples. It was approved the next day.

Completing the group of PLs that reduce Protected Areas is the reduction of the Jamanxim National Forest by 486 thousand hectares, in Pará, placed on the agenda during “Agro Week”. In that same infamous week, the proposal that bars IBAMA's inspection actions, also authored by deputy Lúcio Mosquini, and the one that gives the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock the power to interfere in the classification of species as invasive or threatened, if they are used in productive activities, were approved.

Deputies also confirmed the approval, in Chamber committees, of a text that amends the Forest Code and allows deforestation for agricultural production in native non-forest vegetation. According to the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), this type of vegetation covers around 50 million hectares - an area almost the size of Bahia -, in the Cerrado, Pantanal, Pampa, Atlantic Forest and caatinga, including environmentally sensitive areas.

The Chamber's Agriculture Committee approved a project to end the delimitation of the Tekoha Guasu Guavirá Indigenous Land, of 24 thousand hectares, in Paraná. It will still need to be evaluated by other bodies. The Constitution and Justice approved a project that extinguishes the Cristópolis National Forest, in Bahia, covering 12.8 thousand hectares. If there is no appeal, the text goes to the Senate.

Speaking in the Senate, the House's Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Committee also approved, in June, a proposal that creates an accelerated procedure that allows areas that have been embargoed for environmental crimes to be removed.

“What we have seen in Congress is the promotion of a broader political project of socio-environmental destruction, aimed at serving different economic interests, some of them shady”, says Alice Dandara, lawyer at the Instituto Socioambiental. “Not only Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Communities will suffer the consequences, but the entire population, including rural producers themselves”, he adds.

In March, the Climate Observatory updated the “Destruction Package”, a set of anti-environmental and climate proposals in Congress. The survey shows that 70 proposals being processed in the Legislature represent potential socio-environmental threats.