Brazil’s Senate approved an environmental licensing bill that could expedite major infrastructure projects, including paving a highway that cuts through one of the most intact parts of the Amazon Rainforest in northwestern Brazil.
The BR-319 highway runs through 885 kilometers (550 miles) of rainforest, connecting Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, with Rondônia state farther south. It was built in the 1970s but is currently in disrepair.
Local politicians say it will help integrate Brazil’s northern Amazonas state with the rest of Brazil, bringing economic benefits to the region. But environmentalists fear paving it will bring more deforestation, pushing the rainforest past its tipping point.
The new special environmental license bill, first introduced as a temporary decree in August by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, gives the executive branch power to speed up and simplify environmental regulations for projects they define as strategic.
On Dec. 2 and 3, the bill sped through both houses of Congress before the decree’s 180-day deadline, officially converting it into law. It is now pending the president’s final approval.
Supporters see the law as essential for development. “The special environmental license will unlock thousands of projects that are paralyzed in this country,” Senator Eduardo Braga, leader of the centrist MDB party, said during the Dec. 3 Senate session.
Others call it a setback for environmental and human rights protections.
“From now on, large projects with high potential for social impact and environmental damage will be able to bypass a rigorous licensing process, which includes consultations with affected communities,” the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian environmental watchdog organization, wrote in a statement.
“Large hydropower plants, railways, waterways, oil blocks, ports and roads, including in environmentally sensitive areas of the Amazon, will be able to be licensed in one year, merely requiring a political decision that classifies them as ‘strategic,’” it added.
The new bill, once law, mandates a 12-month deadline for licensing authorities to reach a final answer for strategic projects. Today, the timeline for environmental licensing is based on need, with no limitations on the duration of the process; some take several years.
“Repaving preexisting highways” is considered a special case, requiring a licensing window of just 90 days, and business owners can file recent secondary data instead of official studies carried out by technical staff if the timeline is exceeded.
“Why do people’s lives, which are at the mercy of increasingly intense socioenvironmental disasters, not seem to be considered when we discuss what a strategic project is? In what sense is it strategic?” Tarcísio Motta, a member of the Chamber of Deputies with the Socialism and Liberty Party, said during a Dec. 2 parliamentary session to discuss the bill.
“Seeing nature as an obstacle to be overcome … in a context where people are dying from heavy rains, drought, fires, is, in my view, misguided,” he added.
Banner image: BR-319 highway in Amazonas, Brazil. Image © Nilmar Lage/Greenpeace.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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