Ricardo Salles backs down from attempt to reduce official target for reducing deforestation and wildfires.

247 - Environment Minister Ricardo Salles backed down from his intention to reduce by 90% The goal is to curb deforestation and illegal fires in national biomes, as outlined in the government's Multi-Year Plan (PPA) until 2023. The PPA was approved by Congress and signed into law by Jair Bolsonaro last December. 

According to the newspaper report The State of S. PaulThe retreat was announced by the Ministry of Economy, which issued a statement informing that the environmental ministry maintains the target foreseen in the PPA (Pluriannual Plan). "In this context, the initial proposal to change the target presented by the MMA (Ministry of the Environment) needed to be adjusted to comply with legal criteria, which was done by the MMA by proposing a new wording for analysis by the ME (Ministry of Economy)," says an excerpt from the statement.

The Ministry of Economy, however, emphasizes that the involvement of other ministries, such as Agriculture, Defense, and Justice, is necessary to implement the actions needed to control illegal deforestation. 

"Reduce deforestation and illegal fires in the biomes by 90%, through the cross-cutting implementation of the policies stipulated for each of the initiatives involved in the National Plan for the Control of Illegal Deforestation and Recovery of Native Vegetation 2020-2023, namely, MAPA (Ministry of Agriculture), MJ (Ministry of Justice), MCTI (Ministry of Science and Technology), MD (Ministry of Defense), MInfra (Ministry of Infrastructure), MME (Ministry of Mines and Energy), MDR (Ministry of Regional Development), among others," says the note from the Ministry of Economy.