The creation of a regulatory agency for forest concessions was presented as a proposal in the Escolhas’ workshop.

The initial results of the new study under development by the Institute bring improvements for modeling, such as inventory, management plan and licensing.

Brazil has 200 million hectares of native forests with the potential to be concessioned and managed. However, there are several items within the legal and institutional structure that impedes the full development of the forest concessions’ model development. Proposals for legislative, regulatory and institutional changes to turn available the concessions as a business model are the subject of a new study being developed by Instituto Escolhas “Innovations to Advance in the Current Model of Forest Concessions in Brazil. This set of proposals will support the positioning of Brazil’s Coalition on Climate, Forestry and Agriculture in discussions on a new legal framework for forestry concessions that is being discussed in the context of the National Congress.

The initial results of the work within the series “Unlocking the Bioeconomy agenda” were presented in an online workshop this Thursday (03/09) held by Escolhas, in order to guarantee greater quality and relevance to the approach, as well as to stimulate the dialogue among different sectors of society. The objective was to gather contributions to the challenge of protecting and preserving forests, and to generate green and sustainable businesses – the basis of Bioeconomics -, which currently falls short of the potential it represents, which is the allocation of native public forests for concessions. To this purpose, the main actors were brought together: parliamentarians, representatives of the public sector, government agencies, universities, and civil society organizations.

Among the participants of the workshop were Congressman Rodrigo Agostinho, coordinator of the Parliamentary Environmentalist Front, representatives of the Economic and Social Development Bank (Bndes), the Brazilian Forest Service, the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), the Association of Wood Exporting Industries (Aimex) of the State of Pará, law firms, companies such as Precious and institutions such as Woods Holding, Imazon, FSC Brazil, Imaflora, among others.

The presentation was made by the lawyer Aldo de Cresci, specialized in forest area and responsible for the research, who listed the main points so that the private person can explore the area commercially. Those points are: to change the Brazilian Forestry Service (SFB) into a regulatory agency, which would be responsible for regulating, modeling and inspecting the concessions; modeling and concession notices to be launched and put into public bidding after Management Plans and Environmental Licensing, besides these areas already have a complete forest and biodiversity inventory; and the possibility of a hybrid regulatory model, in which the State offers areas for concessions and also allows private companies to request authorizations for the management and exploration of other areas. The proposals still provide for the amendment of article 20 of Law No. 11284/16, so that the concessionaire can exploit carbon credits, environmental services and the possibility of using the assets of concessions as guarantees and ballasts for financing and other financial instruments.

Brenda Brito, from Imazon, and Fabio Olmos, from Permium Global, commented on the use of the regulatory agency with a broader scope, also for environmental services, the possibility of revenues with carbon credits and non-forestry products. The Escolhas’ executive director, Sergio Leitão, explained that the regulatory agency’s proposal is that it can cover all forest services. Fabio Olmos still suggested as a complement to the study proposals, the inclusion of other modalities of concessions for restoration, management, preservation, and concessions for tourism.

The Escolhas’ Coordinator of Research and Manager of Projects and Products, Gabriel Kohlmann, explained better one of the items proposed and discussed at the event, the elaboration and updated detailed inventory (100% inventory) and the elaboration cost will be fully from the regulatory agency. Currently, by law, the Forest Inventory presented is as “sample” and the final cost is up to the concessionaire. “Our motivation to propose a 100% inventory is that it will be possible to bring a volume of information to the moment of the bidding, in which the economic-financial modeling of the concession business will be more precise and will make it more attractive to investors”. For the Congressman Rodrigo Agostinho (PSB/SP) it is possible to work the proposals from two perspectives, the perspective of public policies, with a series of signals, including for the Government, of what needs to be improved in structure and suggestions. “Like the possibility of the regulatory agency, changes in procedures, more structural. And another line is a Bill, in the perspective of a new proposal or the proposal that is already in the [Federal] Senate”. For him, “we are discussing here a new direction for the Brazilian rain forests and we must dream high, even if it is conquered little by little. The window of opportunities we have is to vote on this in early October”.

In closing, Sergio Leitão highlighted the importance of the debate for society. “With the workshop, we allowed and collaborated in order to organize the critical reading process about the challenges we have to overcome in order to allow the concessions to fulfill this function of generating sustainable economic exchange in the Amazon Forest”.