{"id":47849,"date":"2023-01-04T09:20:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T09:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatechangenews.com\/?p=47849"},"modified":"2023-01-04T09:56:06","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T09:56:06","slug":"first-day-office-lula-revives-1-billion-fund-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2023\/01\/04\/first-day-office-lula-revives-1-billion-fund-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"Lula revives $1 billion Amazon Fund and environmental protections"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his first day in office, Brazil\u2019s new president, Lula da Silva, signed\u00a0a package of seven executive orders aimed\u00a0at controlling deforestation in the Amazon and re-building the country\u2019s environmental institutions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the package, Brazil\u2019s new leader reinstated the Amazon Fund, a $1.2 billion fund to protect of the world\u2019s largest rainforest, after a three-year period of inactivity. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Donors Germany and Norway\u00a0suspended transfers to the fund <\/span>in 2019<\/span><\/a>, under the previous government of Jair Bolsonaro, after the former president unilaterally suspended the board of directors and the technical committee of the fund.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, Lula reinstated the fund\u2019s governing body, which Norwegian environment minister Espen Barth Eide <\/span>said<\/span><\/a> \u201callows for an immediate reactivation of the fund\u201d. <\/span>\u00a0The UK’s environment minister Therese Coffey said<\/a> the UK was “seriously looking at” joining the fund.<\/span><\/p>\n

Destruction of Brazil\u2019s Cerrado savanna soars for third year in a row<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fund, which was established during Lula\u2019s second term in 2008, supports 102 conservation projects in the Amazon, among them <\/span>forests<\/span><\/a> managed by indigenous people and small-scale <\/span>farms<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the first executive mandates, Brazil\u2019s new president also moved the Rural Environmental Registry \u2014which tracks all rural land-ownership\u2014 from the agriculture to the environment ministry, extinguished the possibility of conciliating environmental fines and reactivated a plan to prevent and control deforestation in the Amazon.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is still a long way to go, but what we’ve seen at the beginning of this mandate is a right start and demonstrates the importance that the issue has gained on Lula’s agenda,\u201d said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian NGO\u00a0Climate Observatory.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n