The Amazon Fund was proposed by the Brazilian government during COP-12, the World Climate Conference, in 2006, and was effectively created on August 1, 2008, during the second term of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).
The program seeks voluntary contributions, that is, donations for preventing, monitoring and combating deforestation, as well as conservation and sustainable use of the Legal Amazon.
The Amazon Fund is managed by the BNDES, which raises funds, hires and monitors supported projects and actions. It has an Amazon Fund Guidance Committee (Cofa), responsible for the guidelines and criteria for its functioning.
Representatives of the federal government, the states of the Legal Amazon and civil society participate in Cofa.
There is also a Technical Committee, which is appointed by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, which certifies emissions from deforestation in the forest.
Up to 20% of the program’s resources are devoted to systems for monitoring and controlling deforestation in other Brazilian biomes and in other tropical countries.
Among the attributions of the Amazon Fund are:
- Management of public forests and protected areas;
- Environmental control, monitoring and inspection;
- Sustainable forest management;
- Economic activities developed from the sustainable use of vegetation;
- Ecological and economic zoning, territorial ordering and land regularization;
- Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;
- Recovery of deforested areas.
Recently, there was also the announcement of the expansion of its functions, as shown in the art below:
In all, 102 projects and 384 institutions are supported directly and through partners, with more than 207,000 people benefiting from sustainable production activities.
In addition, 195 conservation units and 101 indigenous lands in the Amazon are supported. 1,706 environmental inspection missions were carried out.
During the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the Fund was paralyzed. In 2023, Germany announced that it would unlock the features.
In addition to this European country, Norway also contributes, and others such as France, the United Kingdom and Spain have signaled their participation. On a visit to Brazil, the United States special envoy for climate also highlighted the “commitment” to working with the Amazon Fund.
With new donations, the amount available for the program reached BRL 5.4 billion in early 2023. In 2018, the amount made available was BRL 3.4 billion.
Source: CNN Brasil
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