Government of Pará increases rigor in environmental inspection
The Decree that regulates the law on infraction environmental administrative processes has already been published in the Official Gazette of the State
The Official State Gazette, edition of Tuesday (06), brings Decree nº 2.804, which regulates State Law nº 9.575/2022, which deals with the administrative process for the investigation of conducts and activities harmful to the environment, in the with regard to supervision. With the new law, inspection agents will have their powers expanded, with authorization to carry out assessments and set the amount of the fine at the time of drawing up the Notice of Violation, allowing the processes to be processed more quickly by the environmental agency.
From the publication of the Decree, the environmental inspection agent can investigate environmental infractions; collect all means of legal evidence of authorship and materiality, as well as the extent of the damage verified in the act of environmental inspection, notifying the assessed person of the Notice of Violation issued against him, the obligations, precautionary administrative measures that may be imposed and the option to present a defense within the period designated by law or seek environmental reconciliation at the Environmental Conciliation Center (Nucam).
Tatilla Brito Pamplona, state attorney and head of the Legal Consultancy of the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (Semas), considers that the decree brings significant improvements to the practical activity of inspection agents, and tends to speed up processes. “Inspection agents now have more autonomy and competences, because in parallel with what Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) does, the inspection agent will effectively set the amount of the fine in the act of inspection”, he explained.
According to the Secretary for the Environment and Sustainability of Pará, Mauro O’de Almeida, “the process, from now on, becomes ‘lesser’, because the offender will be aware of the record drawn up and the value of the fine fixed in the act of inspection, already being able to file a conciliation request or with the defense to contest the value or the notice itself”.
Task force – In the last four years, the number of environmental inspectors increased by almost 1,000% in Pará. Currently, more than 100 inspectors make up the State Force to Combat Deforestation, which carries out Operation Amazônia Viva together with the Civil, Scientific and Military Police, in addition to the Military Fire Department.
Thirty operations have already been launched, resulting in the seizure of more than 12,000 cubic meters (m³) of log wood, 2,000 m³ of sawn wood and 273,000 m³ of staked wood, and a contribution to a 21% reduction in deforestation , in the comparison between August 2021 and July 2022, and August 2020 and July 2021, according to the calendar of the year of the System for Monitoring the Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon Forest by Satellite 2022 (Prodes).
With information from the Pará Agency
