The Brazilian Coalition on Climate, Forests, and Agriculture – a multi-sector movement formed by over 150 companies, business associations, research centers and civil society organizations, that aims the development of a low-carbon economy – refutes the proposal that advances in Congress, which extends once again the time to register with the Environmental Rural Registry (CAR).
The draft bill PLS 287/2015, which is pending in the Senate, extends to May 2018 the limit of the benefits of the Forest Code, weakening its deployment agenda. Such extension disrespects the rural producers who have joined the CAR within the time limit set by the law and benefits those who are in the margins of legislation.
Most producers have already registered and started the process of compliance with the Code. Statistics available on the official CAR portal indicate that almost 100% of the areas that can be registered – based on data by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) – are already registered in the system. In total, the CAR System (Sicar) has already registered over 400 million hectares, and more than 4 million rural owners and squatters with CAR throughout the country.
CAR certainly represents one of the utmost advances in the implementation of the Forest Code. The achieved results turned Sicar into one of the largest geospatial databases in the world, with a vast network of rural properties and settlements; as well as their respective areas of protection: legal reserves, permanent preservation area, and areas of restricted use. Sicar is one of the most relevant Geographic Information Systems (GIS) worldwide.
Therefore, the Brazilian Coalition understands there is no reason to extend, for the third time, the registration with CAR. A possible extension of the legal term only benefits a small part of landowners, who already had more than enough time to rectify.
The Brazilian Coalition also highlights the urgency to intensify Government’s support regarding the registration of the small rural producers, settlers, and quilombolas, so that they may be in the Sicar’s base within the term established in the current law. We believe the priority now is to ensure progress in the CAR’s validation process by the States, and the implementation of the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA). These actions will bring even more credibility to the Forest Code, and to Brazil’s leading position in the international environmental markets and agendas, by showing markets that the country’s agricultural products respect the law, and demonstrating Brazil’s engagement to commitments such as the Paris Agreement.
Thus, concerning the Brazilian institutions and the laws created, the Brazilian Coalition stands against any modification in the Forest Code that brings greater legal insecurity to the rural producer, damages to the environmental agenda, and delays in the implementation of this legislation. Therefore, we request the senators and deputies from Parliamentary Fronts of Agriculture and the Environment, and other representatives, not to follow up on this agenda, avoiding the increase of divergences and changes in the agri-environmental agenda.