Partial veto on Amazon land law

The Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has approved a controversial new law that will enable farmers in the Amazon to acquire title over an area of public land larger than France.

But President Lula vetoed two of the most contentious clauses in the bill, which would have allowed absentee landlords and companies to benefit from the transfer.

The measure is designed to end the chaotic state of land ownership in the region, in which hundreds of thousands of farmers do not have legal title to their land, with many claims dating back decades.

Under the “regularization”, title will be granted to occupiers who can show they occupied the land peacefully before the end of 2004. Plots of up to 100 hectares will be handed over for free, those up to 400 hectares will be available at a nominal rate, while those between 400 and 1500 hectares will be transferred at market rates, but with a 20-year payment period.

The legislation, originally proposed by the government, was altered significantly in Brazil’s Congress by deputies linked to the country’s powerful rural lobby. Under pressure from several ministers, Lula agreed to strike out two of those changes: one would have enabled title to have been given to land-holders not resident in the region, and the other would have allowed corporate bodies to benefit from the measure.

However, Lula allowed another of the controversial changes to stand: beneficiaries of the land transfer will be allowed to sell on larger holdings within three years, instead of a ten-year minimum as proposed in the original measure. Environmental groups fear this could heat up land speculation in the region and threaten anti-deforestation measures.

Among the critics of the new land legislation are a group of federal prosecutors in the region, who claim it is unconstitutional. They cite the fact that it could allow the transfer of public land to people who acquired it fraudulently, and that it does not explicitly protect the rights of traditional and indigenous communities.

The legislation gets its approval as the latest satellite data from the Brazilian National Space Research Agency suggests there has been a sharp drop in Amazon deforestation during recent months, although heavy cloud cover has meant that the survey was very incomplete.

Copyright Tim Hirsch 2009. All Rights Reserved.

The great Amazon giveaway

Brazil’s environment minister Carlos Minc is calling on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to veto parts of a new land law which could undermine efforts to conserve the Amazon rainforest.

The measure, originally proposed by the government, would transfer an area of public land larger than France (670,000 square kilometres) into private hands.

The aim is to “regularize” hundreds of thousands of land-holdings in the region whose occupiers have never been granted legal title, with some claims dating back decades. The “land chaos” of the Amazon is widely seen as a barrier to effective enforcement of anti-deforestation measures, and a major cause of violent conflict in the region.

But Minc and others fear that changes made to the law in the Brazilian congress will provide incentives for speculators to occupy new areas of forest in the expectation that title will eventually be recognized.

Environmental groups have warned it is part of a sustained attack on environmental safeguards in Brazil which could jeopardize progress in reducing deforestation. Brazil’s National Climate Change Plan, agreed last December, includes a target to reduce annual forest loss in the Amazon by 70% in the next decade, representing avoided emissions estimated at 4.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

President Lula presented the “provisional measure” in February as a means of giving security to some 300,000 smaller farmers in the Amazon region. The smallest holdings (up to 100 hectares) would be donated for free; medium-sized units would be transferred for a nominal charge; and larger estates (up to 1,500 hectares) would attract market prices but with a 20-year payment period.

In the version of the law passed last week by Brazil’s senate, critical safeguards in the original measure had been altered by legislators linked to the country’s powerful rural lobby.

For example, a ban on the re-sale of newly-privatized land within 10 years was reduced to a three-year time limit. In addition, corporate and non-resident landholders would be entitled to benefit from the transfer, which was originally restricted to private individuals living in the area.

Non-governmental organizations in Brazil have warned that this would amount to an amnesty for illegal land-grabbers, and would heat up speculation in forest areas earmarked for improved access, such as where highways are being paved.

A joint statement issued by 28 NGOs, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, said the measure was among a series of current attempts to dismantle Brazil’s environmental legislation.

“It opens up the possibility of legalizing the situation of a great number of fraudulent land-claimants, incentivising an assault on our public heritage, the concentration of land ownership and the advance of illegal deforestation,” the statement read.

Quoted on the environment ministry website, minister Minc said he would be appealing to president Lula to veto those articles added to the land measure by the Congress, which he said had “disfigured” the original proposal.

“I can’t guarantee that Lula will veto them, but we are going to ask,” said Minc.

Carlos Minc has been involved in an increasingly public battle with government colleagues, notably the agriculture minister Reinhold Stephanes, over other proposed changes to Brazilian environmental legislation. Among the most controversial is a plan to flexibilise Brazil’s 44-year-old Forest Code, which requires landowners to keep a minimum proportion of a property in native vegetation – 80% in the Amazon, and 20% in other areas – and to maintain forest cover along river-banks, hilltops and steep slopes.

Minc recently warned that that attempts to weaken Brazil’s environmental laws would be going against the tide of history and current global trends. He added that if measures such as the land rules increased deforestation, it would mean the end of Brazil’s climate change plan, and of the Amazon Fund set up to attract climate-linked investment in forest protection.

A version of this article was published by Point Carbon