Senate President: Brazil must acknowledge illegal deforestation

Senator Rodrigo Pacheco, head of Brazil’s Senate, said in Glasgow, Scotland, today (Nov. 9) that Brazil needs to make a “mea culpa” and recognize that illegal deforestation has “the world alarmed” and may damage the country’s image before the international community.

Pacheco’s statements were made during the event Green Future is in Brazil, promoted by the country’s National Industry Confederation (CNI) at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26.

This scenario, he went on, should earn Brazil the diagnosis and the identification of a reality in need of transformation. “We all have this commitment: to identify the problem and recognize that we’re on the path leading to a solution,” he added.

Alongside Environment Minister Joaquim Leite and CNI President Robson de Andrade, the senator said that Brazil is also to be praised for its efforts against climate change. In this connection, he mentioned the congressional approval of such proposals as the Legal Framework for Basic Sanitation and the bill anticipating the target of slashing greenhouse emissions by 43 percent from 2030 to 2025. A Senate vote was held in October and the text is now under consideration at the lower house.

The proposal unveiled by the Brazilian government at the convention in December 2020 stipulated a 37 percent reduction in emissions by 2025, and 43 percent by 2030.

Another positive aspect, Pacheco argued, is the awareness among Brazilian society regarding climate and the environment. “Brazilian society has matured concerning environmental issues. Earlier on, there was an awareness in the press associated with combing economic development and environmental protection. This has become a constant reality, topics that can only move forwards, never again backwards,” he declared.

Resources from developed countries

The president of the Brazilian Senate also advocated that developed countries take up responsibility in the preservation of forests, especially in aiding developing nations.

“To be preserved, these forests need the contribution of all countries—especially developed ones, which availed themselves of their economic activities in advance, with some sacrifice to the environment,” he argued.

Pacheco also stated that deforestation should be tackled with control mechanisms, but these investments from developed countries “are vital and fair, because there is a logic of historical compensation and not philanthropic altruism,” the senator affirmed.