The governor of Mato Grosso, Mauro Mendes (União Brasil), defended the creation of stricter environmental measures to punish crimes against the environment.
In an interview with CNN 360°Mendes argued that Brazilian agribusiness cannot be harmed by a minority that commits infractions.
According to the governor, the Brazilian Forest Code is “without a doubt, the most restrictive environmental law on the planet”.
However, he highlighted that a small proportion of producers still fail to comply with the legislation: “Those who do not comply with it deliberately, who deforest beyond what they can, who commit these environmental crimes, are less than 2%”.
Protection of agribusiness image
Mendes emphasized the importance of protecting the reputation of the Brazilian agricultural sector: “We cannot harm the country, the image of Brazilian agribusiness, our relations with international trade that we do from agriculture, because of 2% of the people” .
The governor reported that, in a meeting with 50 presidents of rural unions, there was consensus on the need to severely penalize offenders.
“It is better for us to harshly penalize 2% than to let 2% penalize our country, the environment and our markets with which we develop activities from Brazilian agriculture”, he stated.
Expectation of support from the National Congress
Mauro Mendes expressed confidence that the National Congress will understand the importance of adopting more rigorous measures against environmental crimes.
He believes that, with the implementation of these measures, it will be possible to ‘ban some environmental crimes’ and that this example can be applied to other sectors of Brazilian legislation.
“I am absolutely convinced that by adopting this tougher and more restrictive measure, we will practically ban some environmental crimes and that this example can also serve other fields of Brazilian legislation, banning some types of crimes that are also so recurrent and so persistent in the our Brazil”, concluded the governor.
