Environmental agents intensify strike amid record fires in Brazil

After six months of a partial strike, Brazilian environmental agents doubled down and announced an intensification of their protest for better work conditions and wages. The decision came after months of deadlock in the negotiations with the federal government, which in early June stated it had “reached the maximum limit, from a budgetary point of view, of what it can offer.”

“The government unilaterally closed the negotiating channel we had,” Wallace Lopes, a director at the association representing the environmental specialists, ASCEMA, told Mongabay.

Since January, federal employees from the federal environmental agency, IBAMA, the agency for the conservation units, ICMBio, the Brazilian Forestry Service and the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change have reduced their activities on the ground and focused on bureaucratic work.

Now, only 10% of the personnel will be available to monitor activities in the field, including controlling deforestation, illegal burning, predatory fishing and illegal mining. Large operations, which demand the displacement of many employees for a long period, are suspended during the strike.

“Operations to seize cattle, destroy goldmines, combat deforestation in the Amazon hotspots, contain the advance of gold mines in the Yanomami and Munduruku Indigenous lands — all of this will be put on hold,” said Lopes, who is also an IBAMA agent.

Agents from five states already initiated the new phase of the strike on July 24, including in Pará and Acre, in the Amazon. Thirteen other states will follow on July 1. The intensification of the movement happens amid record fires in the Pantanal and Cerrado biomes, both suffering from the remnants of El Niño — an abnormal warming of the surface of oceans’ waters that reduces the rain in the northern part of Brazil — and the effects of global warming.

This year, the dry season came earlier in the Pantanal, the world’s largest floodplain, where 3,372 fires were registered from January to June 25, a 2,000% bump from last year’s 150 fires, according to Brazil’s space agency, INPE. If nothing changes, this fire season in the Pantanal may be even more devastating than the one from 2020, when 30% of the biome’s area burned and nearly 17 million animals died in flames.

In the Cerrado savanna, fires increased 30% in the same period — from 9,380 to 12,155. The situation is not better in the Amazon, where states such as Amazonas are preparing for one of the worst droughts ever.

“When you have the environmental agency paralyzed by just demands and allied it to climate change and the rebound of the super El Niño, the situation worries us a lot,” Rômulo Batista, a spokesperson from Greenpeace Brasil, told Mongabay.

The workers assure the fight against the fires will continue despite the strike. “These are fires of gigantic proportions. So, there’s no way we can launch a mobilization process and turn a blind eye to this,” Lopes said.

However, the swiftness of response may be affected by the gridlock of other sectors, such as the civil servants on strike responsible for buying the agents’ uniforms and equipment, paying the bills and closing contracts with supplies. “The middle managers, who provide support for all areas, also joined the movement,” Lopes explained.

The agents are protesting for better salaries and work conditions, including hiring new staff. According to ASCEMA, there are only 700 inspectors to cover the country’s six biomes, and the environmental specialist category workforce should be doubled.

They also demand other benefits, such as a new risk bonus for agents exposed to dangerous situations. “It’s a fair claim for the good work done last year. It’s more than deserved,” said Batista, referring to the continuous decrease in Amazon deforestation since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2023. “For a long time now, they have been asking for restructuring, a pay rise and a better working structure.”

According to Lopes, the federal government’s counteroffer is far from meeting their demands. “The government has to wake up to reality and try to resolve this situation soon,” he said, claiming there is a contradiction between President Lula’s environmental discourse and how the government is treating the environmental agents.

The Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services, which is heading the negotiations, said in a statement to Mongabay that it is “awaiting a formal response to the last proposal made by the Government at the Negotiating Table, which provides for adjustments of between 19% and 30% for the category.”  

The reduction of the agent’s presence on the ground has already affected the issuance of environmental fines in Brazil, which dropped 62% in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2023 — from 9,586 to 3,659. When considering only the Amazon states, the drop was more severe, from 4,347 fines in 2023 to 1,210 in 2024, a decrease of 72%, according to ASCEMA.

“Those willing to commit environmental crime see this as an opportunity and the certainty of impunity,” said Greenpeace’s Batista.

Banner image: Environmental agents assure they will continue to fight crime and fires despite the strike, but the speed of response may be affected by the paralysis of other sectors. Image courtesy of Ricardo Campos/IBAMA.

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