Environmental Issues in Brazil - Solutions and Policies

Solutions and Policies

Brazil has a generally advanced and comprehensive legislation on environmental protection and sustainability. Laws regarding forests, water, and wildlife have been in effect since the 1930s. Until the mid-1990s, environmental legislation addressed isolated environmental issues; however, the legal framework has been improved through new policy-making that targets environmental issues within the context of an integrated environmental policy. The Brazilian government strives toward the preservation and sustainable development of Brazilian biomes. Consequently, the Brazilian government developed strategies to impose specific policies for each biome and organize opportunities for social participation, institutional reform of the forestry sector, and expansion of the biodiversity concept. For example, the program Legal Earth, developed by the Ministries of Agrarian Development and Environment, has the responsibility to regulate the use of public lands occupied in the Amazon region. This program was successful in restricting the marketing of meat produced on illegally deforested areas and the proper identification of permitted areas for growing sugarcane for the production of ethanol.

Brazil recognizes that it is part of the solution to the problem of climate change. In 2010, Brazil took the necessary steps to advance its climate change commitments made at the COP-15 in Copenhagen. For example, the policy to combat deforestation in the Amazon in recent years has produced positive results, as demonstrated by announcements of increasingly lower deforestation rates. Data from 2010 shows that Brazil has reduced deforestation rates in the Amazon by more than 70%, the lowest deforestation rate in over 20 years. At this rate, Brazil's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 38.9% could be reached by 2016 rather than 2020.