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By Instituto Escolhas

06 April 2023

3 minute read

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With an eye on the new government, what did Escolhas do in the last 100 days?

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On April 10th, the new Lula government reaches the 100-day milestone. In the environmental area, the developments in this first quarter make it clear that the game has changed. A governance team anchored to the opposite side of the sustainability agenda was replaced by an attentive team to the climate emergency and the importance of the bioeconomy – and, more than that, willing to dialogue and listen to proposals and solutions developed by the civil society in recent years.

“At Escolhas, all necessary articulation to resume the dialogue with the federal administration started much earlier, when the Lula government was still a possibility. Now, with positions and functions defined, we find a favorable scenario to discuss the themes, challenges, and solutions that we have been working on for some time”, states Sergio Leitão, executive director of Instituto Escolhas.

Until March of this year, the Instituto fulfilled an intense agenda of meetings and articulation with the federal administration, mainly providing data and proposals to curb the exploitation of illegal gold and to generate employment and income in the Amazon through bioeconomy initiatives. Highlights were the audiences with the ministers Flávio Dino (MJSP), Waldez de Góes (MIDR), Marina Silva (MMA), Sônia Guajajara (MPI) and Paulo Teixeira (Ministry of Agriculture), and for the meetings with Roberto Campos Neto (president of the Central Bank), Joenia Wapichana (president of Funai) and Robinson Barreirinhas (Secretary of the Federal Revenue Service).

Additionally, Instituto Escolhas held meetings and encounters with Bernard Appy (Special Secretary of Tax Reform), Carina Pimenta (Secretary of Bioeconomia Bioeconomy/MMA), Rodrigo Agostinho (president of Ibama), Milton José Fornazieri (Secretary of Supply, Cooperativism and Food Sovereignty /Ministry of Agriculture), Moises Savian (Secretary for Land Governance, Territorial and Socio-Environmental Development/Ministry of Agriculture); Mathias Jourdain de Alencastro, Fernanda Cimbra Santiago and Rafael Dubeux (Special Advisors at the Ministry of Finance); Carlos Eduardo Palhares Machado (director of the National Institute of Criminalistics), Erich Adam Moreira Lima (Head of Geological Survey Sector/IC), Alexandre Raphael Deitos (Head of the External Expertise, Environment and People Division/IC), Roberto Reis Monteiro Neto (Technical Scientific Director /IC), Guilherme Mello (Secretary of Economic Policy at the Ministry of Finance), Rodrigo Rollemberg (Secretary of Green Economy, Decarbonization and Bioindustry/MDIC), Marivaldo Pereira (National Secretary for Access to Justice /MJSP), Olivo Dambros (Director of the Department of Territorial and Socio-Environmental Development) and Shirley Anny Abreu do Nascimento (Director of the Land Governance Department), where the latter are linked to the Secretariat of Land Governance, Territorial Development and Socioenvironmental of the Ministry of Agriculture, and, finally, with the board of the National Mining Agency (ANM).

“The openness we have encountered only reinforces that the solutions developed by socioenvironmental organizations are fundamental to guide governmental action at this time and accelerate the overcoming of the setbacks we have seen in the last four years, especially in the realm of sustainable development and social justice”, defends Leitão.

In these three months, the Instituto Escolhas also elaborated a proposal for a Provisional Measure for Gold Control, as a subsidy for government actions, and submitted a request to the National Mining Agency to cancel the offer of new mining areas in the Amazon (6th Round of Area Availability), which has been suspended.

In March, we celebrated the publication of the Normative Instruction that implements the use of electronic invoices in the commercialization of gold proceeding from the mines and the approval of bill of the Provisional Measure MP 1151 in the House of Representatives, which changes the legislation to strengthen the forest concession policy. Both proposals received fundamental contributions from Instituto Escolhas for their elaboration.

And, finally, on the 4th of this month, we celebrated the suspension of the presumption of good faith in the commerce of gold mined in the Amazon mines. The decision by Federal Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes mentions data from Escolhas and is essential to moralize the gold chain in the country.

Let’s go ahead.

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