71% of Brazilian territory is currently devoted to environmental protection

The participants in a public hearing held on Tuesday, November 18, by the Committees for the Environment and Sustainable Development, and for Agriculture, Livestock, Supply and Rural Development, concluded that there is lack of land in Brazil and that the country is unable to fulfill national demands.

According to Evaristo de Miranda, a researcher at Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa - Brazilian Company for Crop and Livestock Research), 6 million 500 thousand hectares that would be necessary to supply demands of agriculture and livestock, forest reserves and quilombola and indigenous communities are missing. Currently, 71% of Brazilian territory is devoted to environmental protection.

Disproportion
According to the researcher, environmentalists and crop and livestock farmers should negotiate, since there is no agreement regarding land. “25 to 30% of the territory is legally available for Brazilian agriculture, but its area occupies more than 50%. Thus, there is a disproportion between environmental legislation, which perhaps has advanced too fast, and reality in the countryside”, he highlighted, reminding that many traditional cultures such as coffee and rice, in addition to cattle raising, are located in permanent preservation areas.

A complete review of legislation
The author of the requirement for the public hearing, Deputy Moreira Mendes (PPS-RO), said that the group, whose mission is to discuss environmental legislation, at the Chamber’s initiative, should take five months to present a proposal for the complete review of Brazilian environmental legislation regarding indigenous people and quilombolas.

This group is integrated by the Committees for Agriculture and Environment, by the Parliamentary Front for Crop and Livestock and the Environmentalist Front, and by the ministries of Agrarian Development, of Environment and of Agriculture.

Swift action to avoid confrontation
Moreira Mendes affirmed that the meeting helped broadening the discussion. According to him, it is necessary to act swiftly, for the agrarian issue not to develop into confrontation.

The deputy affirmed that the information and suggestions of the public hearing will be forwarded to the inter-ministry workgroup, which is addressing the subject.

Productivity increase
The legal assistant of the Institute for Environmental Research of The Amazon (Ipam), André Lima, defended the use of technology in order to reduce the area devoted to cattle breeding business, which should eventually be used for agricultural production.

André Lima reminded that producers have been demonstrating that it is possible to increase productivity without extending the devastated area in the same proportion. Data from 2005 showed that there was an increase of 214% in agricultural production, while the area increase was 195%.

The Amazon
"The first thing to do is to consider The Amazon separately from the other biomes, because there is a different settlement logic. In The Amazon, nothing can be done, if we consider the Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico (ZEE - Environmental-Economic Zoning) and the prevailing environmental and forest legislation. It is possible to intensify the settlements in the areas that had been already open, and thus increase productivity without deforesting another area. In the other regions of the country, it is necessary to discuss where it is possible and necessary to recover ecosystems” highlighted Lima.

Data from Embrapa on the occupation of Brazilian land will be available at the company’s website at the latest on the first week of December, at the page of Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite (Embrapa Satellite Monitoring) (www.cnpm.embrapa.br).

Report - Karla Alessandra/Rádio Câmara
Editing - Marcos Rossi/Rejane Xavier