The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) blocked R$ 25 million in financing resources from 58 rural landowners involved in irregular deforestation. To verify who are the illegal deforesters, the bank has been using data from the monitoring of deforestation from MapBiomas since February of this year. The tool with georeferencing maps shows precisely how the land cover and use is in each of the country’s biomes and allows detecting the daily felling of trees.
The BNDES then crosses the MapBiomas information with the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) records to locate the rural properties. Before determining the blockade, the BNDES also checks whether there is authorization from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) for legal deforestation in the identified area. If not, the funding block is carried out immediately.
In an interview with Brazil Agency and to National Radio, the president of the BNDES, Aloizio Mercadante, assessed the advantages of the technology employed. “It is unquestionable because it is an image. How to question? It is much more efficient to use technology than simply sending the inspector down to the area, walking around the property, identifying problems. Satellite imaging is a revolutionary leap, it is a disruptive technology”.
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Mercadante said that blocking financing will be the bank’s line from now on. “The BNDES will be relentless. We no longer accept criminal entrepreneurs who deforest and have financing from public and private banks, because we are working with several partners”. In the first month of the partnership with MapBiomas alone, the BNDES blocked around BRL 25 million from these 58 rural properties, equivalent to 1,300 soccer fields. The names of the owners were not disclosed because the processes are under bank secrecy.
However, the BNDES confirms that most of the land is a soy and corn producing unit. According to the bank, in February, the states with the biggest blockages of rural credit were Tocantins, Pará, Rondônia, Paraná and Minas Gerais, with occurrences in other units of the federation. Of the total number of landowners who lost the granting of rural credit, three appealed the decision. The defenses allege that they had state licenses to deforest. The BNDES will analyze the documentation presented in the appeals. If there is a legal basis, the financing will be authorized again.
The president of BNDES points out that the next step is precisely to establish partnerships with state governments to receive this information. “We have the challenge of having access to information on deforestation authorizations from state agencies. In the next step, at first, we are going to make an agreement with the states of the Amazon, then with the other biomes so that we can have a complete check” .
The BNDES sends the MapBiomas satellite images to Ibama with the identification of irregular areas. The objective is to support the institute in taking the appropriate measures to face illegal deforestation, such as fines and demands for damages to be repaired. In order to have access to rural credit again, the property where the illegality was detected will need to regularize and repair the damage to the devastated area, before the environmental control bodies.
* With information from Agência Brasil.
Editing: Thales Schmidt
