The transition team of the president-elect of Brazil, Lula da Silva, asked the government of Jair Bolsonaro on Monday to disclose annual deforestation data in the Amazon and other biomes in the country.
We request complete data reports from Prodes [Projeto de Monitoramento do Desmatamento na Amazónia por Satélite] Amazónia and Prodes Cerrado from August 2021 to July 2022 are being sent so that we can analyze the information they bring and take the necessary measures,” Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, coordinator of the transition process, said at a press conference. in Sao Paulo.
“The information is that these numbers already exist” and that is why there is “the need to be informed,” he insisted.
This request comes the same day that Lula travels to Egypt to participate in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP27), in what will be his first international trip since he won the presidential elections on October 30.
Alckmin nominally addressed his request to the Minister of the Presidency, Ciro Nogueira, and to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the official body in charge of disclosing deforestation data, which reached record levels under the Bolsonaro regime.
“It is a great concern” because “deforestation alone is responsible for almost 50% of carbon emissions” in Brazil, which is “impressively serious”stressed.
Alckmin insisted that, during the last electoral campaign, Lula made clear his commitment to protecting the environment, and among the measures he will take when he assumes power will be the recovery of the environmental supervision bodies that were dismantled by the current administration.
For his part, former minister Aloizio Mercadante, another key figure in Lula’s team for the transition, recalled that, when the new government takes office, Germany and Norway promised to automatically release the resources of the Fund for the Amazon, which are paralyzed by the next to power of the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro.
These resources, to finance conservation projects in the Amazon jungle, are estimated at 3,000 million reais (about 560 million euros).
Source: Observadora
