Lula sends project that increases penalties for environmental crimes

The federal government announced this Tuesday (15) the sending of a bill that toughens penalties for those who commit environmental crimes in the country. According to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the proposal increases the sentence from 4 to 6 years for crimes such as setting fire to vegetation, and establishes that the crime is initially carried out in a closed prison regime.

Currently, sentences, which vary from 2 to 3 years, normally do not lead to prison and also allow for the rapid prescription of crimes.

“This country is just showing that, from now on, we are not going to play with environmental crime, people will have to be severely punished”, stated Lula during a meeting at the Palácio do Planalto, in which he signed the message sending the project to the National Congress, with a constitutional urgency regime for consideration by legislators.

The urgency regime speeds up the processing steps and establishes a maximum period of 45 days for deliberation on the matter, in each of the legislative houses.

Arsons

The bill is a response to the wave of forest fires that have devastated the country over the past few months, in practically all regions. By the end of September, Brazil had already recorded around 200,000 fires since the beginning of the year. More than half of the total started in the Amazon. The Federal Police (PF) opened 85 investigations to investigate cases with signs of arson.

“Environmental crimes have grown enormously, and there is an international body, called FATF, which is the International Financial Action Group, which estimates that crime related to the environment, in the year 2022 alone, generated an estimated profit of US$110 to US$281 billion. There are several crimes, which is why this figure varies a little. The profits are second only to those from drug trafficking”, highlighted the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandovski.

According to the minister, the project foresees that forest fires committed in conservation units, environmental preservation areas and indigenous lands are considered aggravating factors, which could increase the sentence for anyone convicted of this conduct. Official data cited by Lewandovski indicate that, of the 850,000 convicts, only 350 are imprisoned in Brazil for environmental crimes.

“This is not possible, given the enormous harmful potential of this very serious crime”, noted the minister.

For the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, increasing the penalty is a fundamental measure to discourage this type of crime in the country.

“Increasing the penalty is essential so that those who commit environmental crimes do not come with the expectation that they will have alternative sentences, a reduced sentence, (as) this is what makes them continue to destroy, aggravating the problem of changing the climate”, said Marina Silva.

Also according to the minister, the work to combat fires achieved a reduction in the over 1,100 large fires that were in progress over the last few months throughout the national territory. Of this total, 670 were completely extinguished and 237 were controlled. In the Pantanal, there are still nine large fires left, after 114 fires were extinguished, while in the Amazon, the burned area was reduced by around 80%, from 300 thousand hectares to around 70 thousand hectares.