More than US$ 100 million has already been secured for the implementation of the Plan of Action for Protection and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon during its first two years. The plan is a crucial tool for ensuring that deforestation rates will continue to decline, and the Brazilian government is therefore fully engaged in putting it into effect.
The Plan of Action for Protection and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon comprises four strategic areas:
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Territorial and Landed-Estates Zoning.
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Environmental Monitoring and Control.
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Promotion of Sustainable Activities.
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Environmentally Sustainable Infrastructure.
Territorial and Landed-Estates Zoning
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Conservation units totalling 82,000 square kilometres (an area twice the size of Holland) have been created in conflict areas and places where agricultural production is expanding.
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93,000 thousand square kilometres (an area larger than Portugal) of Indian land have been permanently demarcated.
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Sustainable Settlement Projects (extractivist settlements, sustainable development projects and forest settlements) covering 3,760 square kilometres have been created.
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A Provisional Administrative Restriction Order has imposed development restrictions inside an area of 82,000 square kilometres along the BR-163 highway.
Environmental Monitoring and Control
Sanctions have been strengthened, and measures to curb unsustainable logging have been enforced. Dozens of monitoring and enforcement operations have been undertaken, among which the following were particularly successful in breaking up groups of individuals involved in illegal logging, leading to the prosecution of those responsible:
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Operation Black September (2003)
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Operation Far West (2004)
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Operations Curupira I and II (2005)
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Operation Green Gold (2005)
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Operation Rio Pardo (2005)
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Operation Clean Lands (2005)
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Operation Terra do Meio (2006)
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Operation Novo Empate (2006)
Promotion of sustainable activities
The Brazilian government has been fostering sustainable activities in the region. Recent priorities have included the following:
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Improvements to the Green Protocol, through which projects and activities must incorporate environmental considerations in order to be eligible for tax benefits, and its establishment as a National Monetary Council Norm, which will make it compulsory for environmental variables to be incorporated into technical-assistance projects.
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The approval of a Bill for Administering Public Forests (currently before the Federal Senate), which will make it possible for a Sustainable Forest District to be established.
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The stepping up of a capacity-building programme created by the National Centre for Forestry Training and Capacity Building (CENAFLOR), aimed primarily at workers engaged in sustainable forest-management and extractivist activities.
Environmentally Sustainable Infrastructure
To ensure that an environmentally sustainable infrastructure is put in place, efforts have been made to strengthen the legislation for:
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Improving the effectiveness of controls and administrative sanctions governing illegal deforestation.
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Introducing a moratorium on deforestation in areas larger than 3 hectares in some of the municipalities of the Legal Amazon region.