{"id":77668,"date":"2020-09-29T11:40:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T08:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/brazil-revokes-mangrove-protections-triggering-alarm\/"},"modified":"2020-09-29T11:40:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T08:40:01","slug":"brazil-revokes-mangrove-protections-triggering-alarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/brazil-revokes-mangrove-protections-triggering-alarm\/","title":{"rendered":"#Brazil revokes mangrove protections, triggering alarm"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Brazil revokes mangrove protections, triggering alarm<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Environmentalists
\n Environmentalists warn that rolling back regulations protecting Brazil’s mangroves would open such lands up to development, with possibly catastrophic impact on their ecosystems
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s government on Monday revoked regulations protecting mangroves and other fragile coastal ecosystems, in a measure environmentalists condemned as a “crime” that would lead to their destruction.<\/p>\n


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The decision eliminated so-called “permanent protection zones” created in 2002 to preserve Brazil’s many tropical mangroves and the sand-dune scrublands known as “restinga” along its Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists warned that rolling back the regulations would open such lands up to development, with possibly catastrophic impact on their ecosystems.<\/p>\n

“These areas are already under intense pressure from real-estate development,” said Mario Mantovani, head of environmental group SOS Mata Atlantica.<\/p>\n

“The 2002 regulations at least protected them from further destruction,” he told AFP, calling their repeal “a crime against society.”<\/p>\n

It is the latest in a series<\/a> of environmental controversies for the far-right president, who has presided over a surge in deforestation and fires in the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands since taking office in January 2019.<\/p>\n

The decision was made at a meeting of the National Environmental Council (Conama), which is presided over by controversial Environment Minister Ricardo Salles.<\/p>\n

The council brings together government officials, environmental groups and business associations, but the administration has dramatically changed its composition.<\/p>\n

Last year, the government issued a decree reducing the number of council members from 96 to 23, giving its own members more weight.<\/p>\n

In other decisions, the council also repealed a measure requiring environmental permits for irrigation projects and authorized cement companies to burn empty pesticide containers to recycle them in concrete, a practice environmentalists say is highly polluting.<\/p>\n

“Even as we witness record environmental devastation and Brazil is in flames, Salles dedicates his time to promoting even more destruction,” environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement on the measures.<\/p>\n

Salles has a knack for stirring up controversy.<\/p>\n

In April, a video recording was made public of a Bolsonaro cabinet meeting at which the environment minister said the coronavirus pandemic was an opportunity to roll back regulations “now that the media<\/a>’s only talking about Covid.”<\/p>\n\n

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Environmental groups, big ag unite for Amazon in Brazil\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2020 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Brazil revokes mangrove protections, triggering alarm (2020, September 29)
\n retrieved 29 September 2020
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news<\/a>\/2020-09-brazil-revokes-mangrove-triggering-alarm.html<\/p>\n

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