Brazil: Environmentalists intensify strike after record fires

After six months of partial strikeBrazilian environmental activists have doubled their efforts and announced an intensification of their protest for better working conditions and wages. The decision came after months of stalemate in negotiations with the federal government. which declared in early June It has “reached the upper limit of what it can achieve from a budgetary perspective.”

“The government has unilaterally closed the negotiation channel we had,” Wallace Lopes, director of the association of environmental specialists ASCEMA, told Mongabay.

Since January, federal employees of the federal environmental agency IBAMA, the agency for nature conservation units ICMBio, the Brazilian forestry agency and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change have reduced their activities on the ground and focused on bureaucratic work.

Now only 10% of staff will be available to monitor activities on the ground, including controlling deforestation, illegal burning, predatory fishing and illegal mining. Large operations that require the transfer of many staff for long periods of time will be suspended during the strike.

“Operations to confiscate cattle, “Destroying gold mines, fighting deforestation in the Amazon hotspots, stopping the advance of gold mines on Yanomami and Munduruku lands – all of this is being put on hold,” said Lopes, who also works as an IBAMA agent.

Agents of five states have already initiated a new phase of the strike on July 24, including in Pará and Acre in the Amazon region. Thirteen other states will follow on July 1. The intensification of the movement comes amid record fires in the Pantanal and Cerrado biomes, both suffering the aftermath of El Niño – an abnormal warming of the sea surface that reduces rainfall in northern Brazil – and the effects of global warming.

This year, the dry season began earlier in the Pantanal, the world’s largest flood plain. From January to June 25, 3,372 fires were recorded there, an increase of 2,000 percent compared to the 150 fires last year, according to Brazil’s space agency INPEIf nothing changes, this fire season in the Pantanal could be even more devastating than 2020, when 30% of the biome burned. and almost 17 million animals died in the flames.

In the Cerrado savannah, fires increased by 30% over the same period – from 9,380 to 12,155. The situation is no better in the Amazon region, where states such as Amazonas are preparing for one of the worst droughts ever.

“When the environmental agency is paralyzed by just demands and it is linked to climate change and the return of the Super El Niño phenomenon, the situation worries us greatly,” Rômulo Batista, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil, told Mongabay.

The workers assure that the fight against the fires will continue despite the strike. “These are fires of gigantic proportions. So we cannot start a mobilization process and close our eyes to it,” said Lopes.

However, the speed of response could be hampered by the standstill in other sectors, such as the striking officials responsible for purchasing agents’ uniforms and equipment, paying bills and signing supply contracts. “Middle managers who support all sectors have also joined the movement,” Lopes explained.

Officials are protesting for better salaries and working conditions, including the hiring of new staff. According to ASCEMA, there are only 700 inspectors to cover the country’s six biomes and the number of environmental specialists should be doubled.

They are also demanding other benefits, such as a new risk bonus for agents exposed to dangerous situations. “This is a fair demand for the good work that was done last year. It is more than deserved,” said Batista, referring to the continuous decline in deforestation in the Amazon region since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2023. “They have long been demanding restructuring, salary increases and better work structures.”

According to Lopes, the federal government’s counter-offer is far from meeting their demands. “The government must face reality and try to resolve this situation soon,” he said, claiming there is a contradiction between President Lula’s environmental discourse and the way the government treats environmentalists.

The Ministry of Public Service Management and Innovation, which is leading the negotiations, said in a statement to Mongabay that it is “awaiting a formal response to the latest proposal put forward by the government at the negotiating table, which proposes adjustments of between 19 and 30 percent for this category.”

The reduction in the presence of agents on the ground has already had an impact on the imposition of environmental fines in Brazil, which fell by 62% in the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2023 – from 9,586 to 3,659. Looking only at the Amazon states, the decline was even more severe: from 4,347 fines in 2023 to 1,210 in 2024, a 72% drop, according to ASCEMA.

“Those willing to commit environmental crimes see this as an opportunity and the certainty of impunity,” said Batista of Greenpeace.

Banner image: Environmental officials assure that they will continue to fight crime and fires despite the strike, but the speed of response could be affected by the paralysis of other sectors. Image courtesy of Ricardo Campos/IBAMA.

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