Brazil's environmental enforcement agents set out in January on their first mission this year to combat illegal deforestation, with renewed energy after the election of a president who has promised to stop surging Amazon rainforest destruction.
However, the world is unlikely to see much progress in the battle to defend the Amazon until 2024 at the earliest, according to interviews with nine current and former government officials.
"That number is entirely insufficient for stopping environmental crimes," said Agostinho. "The prospect for getting back that staff is quite challenging." Many of Ibama's veteran field agents retired or left in frustration over the past four years, given restrictions on their jobs under Bolsonaro, who had obstructed their main enforcement tool of environmental fines and sought to limit their destruction of illegal mining and logging equipment.
On a 2021 mission in Rondonia state, an informant forwarded Lima messages from a local chat group, referring to an Ibama agent of his description raiding sawmills. While other agents and environmental officials expressed similar fears, Agostinho said he did not expect rising violence but rather a "pacification" of criminal elements.
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