"Lawsuit seeks to make the Brazilian government meet its deforestation targets in the Amazon", 18 February 2021

...The Institute of Amazonian Studies (IEA), an entity famous for having helped create the first extractive reserves in the Amazon in the 1980s, has filed a public interest civil action in the Federal Court of Parana demanding that the Union fulfill its obligations to contain the deforestation in the Amazon region. The unprecedented lawsuit is based on a scientific study commissioned from Carlos Nobre, a leading Brazilian climatologist.

The central objective of the initiative is...to put into practice the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm). Should the Government not fulfill the goal to which it has committed itself by law, it will have to reforest the area in excess of that target…

...The successful policy, implemented by previous administrations of the Ministry of Environment (MMA) since 2004, has been largely ignored by the Bolsonaro government. According to the latest deforestation figures, measured between August 2019 and July 2020, 11,088 km² of Amazon forest are estimated to have been cleared in that period…

..."The federal government must be called upon to restore what it fails to fulfill in its stated commitment," says Mary Allegretti, who directs the IEA and filed the suit. "This is the only way to move forward, as Carlos Nobre makes clear in his reasoning. We can't just keep protesting. We have to find ways to help solve the climate challenge we are facing"...

...The public interest civil action has been in the making for two years. "It translates science and Brazilian law into legal action," says attorney Delton Winter de Carvalho, a specialist in environmental law. "It is a strong demand and a historic lawsuit...Nobre sets out clearly the interaction between climate and forest. The Amazon acts as a climate mitigation mechanism, sequesters carbon from the atmosphere and helps to keep the increase in global temperature below the limit of 2°C, as provided for in the Paris Agreement...The Amazon Studies Institute is based in Curitiba, which is why the lawsuit was filed in the Federal Court of the State of Parana. There are at least 10 cases of climate litigation in progress in Brazilian higher courts, as well as in regional courts in the states of Amazonas, the Federal District and Paraná…

[For the full list of actions in Portuguese: https://institutoestudosamazonicos.org.br/acervo/acao-civil-iea-contra-uniao/]