Brazil’s Bolsonaro hikes environmental fines to protect Amazon rainforest

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree on Tuesday to step up fines for environmental crimes, according to the official government gazette, in a move to allow more aggressive protection of the Amazon rainforest.

Reuters exclusively reported earlier in the day that Bolsonaro was expected to sign the executive order as soon as Tuesday.

The decree raises the potential value of fines for falsifying documents to cover up illegal logging, clarifies heavier consequences for repeat environmental offenders and will help to reduce the backlog of fines pending collection.

Environmental fines - which also target infractions such as unauthorized hunting, fishing and pollution - are one of Brazil’s key tools for combating illegal deforestation.

The decree, which goes into effect immediately, is one of the first concrete steps the Bolsonaro government has made to bolster Amazon protections following its commitment to end illegal deforestation by 2028 at the COP26 U.N. climate summit in November.

Preserving the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, is vital to preventing catastrophic climate change because of the vast amounts of climate-warming carbon it stores.

The decree also marks a reversal for Bolsonaro, an ardent critic of environmental fines. In his 2018 campaign, the right-wing former army captain railed against an “industry of fines” created by environmental agencies to persecute farmers. He has continued to criticize fines in the run-up to this October’s presidential election.

Bolsonaro’s office and the Environment Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.