Brazil business sectors urge action on slow environmental licensing

Brazilian authorities are moving to make environmental licensing processes more agile as criticism from the business and political sectors is mounting.

Most recently, the president of mining association Ibram, Raul Jungmann, told a critical minerals seminar hosted by development bank BNDES that "waiting five to seven years [for a license] destroys the capacity for investment and causes some projects to die before they even begin. We need to review this bureaucracy." 

Jungmann, who is a former head of environmental regulator Ibama, said the long processing times cause investment outflows, as many other countries approve such licenses in half the time.

In the oil and gas sector, federal company Petrobras has also urged Ibama to authorize exploration in the environmentally sensitive Foz do Amazonas area.

Foz do Amazonas in the Equatorial Margin is considered key to avoid oil supply risks in the next decade. The sedimentary basin is located off Amapá state, which borders Pará and extends into the waters of French Guiana and Suriname.

Last month, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized the delay, telling a radio broadcaster that "Ibama is a government agency, but it seems like it is an agency against the government." 

To tackle the problems, reforms are being planned.

"It is possible that this year there will be some measure through congress to establish defined deadlines for the evaluation of licenses because it is not feasible for licensing processes to lack defined deadlines," a government official told BNamericas on condition of anonymity.

The plan is not to weaken licensing but to establish deadlines by which certain procedures must conclude, the official said.

Delays are also affecting road and rail projects and transmission lines.

On the other hand, the Lula administration is eager to establish Brazil as an ecological powerhouse at the COP30 climate conference set to take place November 10-21 in Pará state capital Belém. The government expects 150 delegations, including heads of state, with over 50,000 participants.