Credit restrictions needed for farms that use fire

In view of the alarming information about the uncontrolled evolution of fires in Brazil that put the forest, biodiversity, natural water system and human health at risk, we sent letters to the Brazilian government and the Brazilian central bank, asking them to immediately publish rules for restrictions on credit to rural properties where uncontrolled or unauthorized fires have occurred in the last 10 years.

Brazil has been recording alarming numbers of fires in several biomes, mainly in the Pantanal and the Amazon. According to Brazilian Minister of the Environment and Climate Marina Silva, 85% of fires in the Pantanal are caused by human action in private areas.

The data made available by the ALARMES System developed by the Burned Area Alert with Estimated Satellite Monitoring (LASA) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), shows how fire is increasingly destroying the forest, biodiversity, and the natural system of water, in addition to worsening human health in impacted regions and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Even so, the Brazilian Government continues to provide rural credit without specific restrictions regarding the use of fire”, says Tarcísio Feitosa, a collaborator of the Forests & Finance Coalition in Brazil.

The Brazilian Government has announced the 2024/2025 Harvest Plan (Plano Safra) with R$400.59 billion for corporate agriculture. If there is no robust regulation to restrict finance to farms with deforestation and the use of fire, the risk of will continue to grow.