Brazil Approves $65M from Amazon Fund for Anti-Deforestation Security Project
The initiative, marking the Amazon Fund's first major law enforcement effort, aims to significantly reduce deforestation rates, which have already fallen to their lowest since 2018 under President Lula's administration.
- Brazil's National Development Bank has approved $65 million from the Amazon Fund to establish a security project to combat deforestation and other environmental crimes in the Amazon rainforest.
- The Amazon Fund, backed by four nations and managed by the BNDES, will make its first disbursement in the coming days for the law enforcement project budgeted at 2 billion reais over the next couple of years.
- The initial resources from the Amazon Fund will be used to purchase helicopters and other essential equipment, and to set up an International Police Cooperation Center in Manaus by early next year.
- Since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in January, deforestation has fallen to the lowest rate since 2018, but it remains nearly double the record low set in 2012.
- President Lula has pledged to end deforestation altogether by 2030, and the head of the country's primary federal environmental enforcement agency has said that Brazil could reach historically low levels of deforestation in one to two years.
Reuters 
CNA 
