San Francisco Frontiers - Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss

Flames have ripped through vast areas of forest and farmland due to the country's worst drought in seven decades, which experts attribute to climate change.

But the spark was lit by people.

"There are economic motivations, to clear areas for pasture, or even to appropriate public lands. But there are also people who set fires just to sow chaos," said Humberto Freire, police chief in charge of the environment and the Amazon rainforest, in an interview with AFP.

"We have indications of possible coordinated actions, due to many fires starting at the same time, in areas close to each other. These coordinated actions could be aimed at destabilizing certain areas, by overloading the firefighters."

Clearing land for agriculture is normally only possible with prior authorization, but is currently banned due to the drought.

The fires have left major cities Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and the capital Brasilia choking on fumes, destroyed crops and left jaguars with burn injuries in the Pantanal wetlands.

Freire said the federal police had opened 50 investigations so far.

"We have received information about suspects being arrested by local police forces," in various states.

- 'Increased sentences' -

Freire said that Brazil's laws had not kept up with the evolution of environmental crimes in the country "while we are experiencing a climate emergency worldwide."

"Often, environmental crimes are perceived as less serious, less important, and the time has come to reflect on the harmful consequences of these crimes, which affect all of humanity and can cause many deaths," he said.

"Unfortunately, in the absence of harsher penalties, we do not have the legal means necessary to carry out our investigations."

Freire said that environmental crimes should be linked to organized crime in order to impose harsher sentences.

"Organized crime has understood that environmental crimes are very profitable, while the legislation provides for sentences that are too low."

Illegal gold panning is punishable by six months to a year in jail and arson by two to four years.

"Depending on the convicted person's criminal record, he will not get a prison sentence. And by the time the investigation is completed, the statute of limitations is likely to have run out," said Freire.

"That is why we really need increased sentences."

Satellites from the Institute for Space Research (Inpe) have detected 61,572 fires in Brazil since the beginning of September.

Last year there were 46,498 in the whole month

N.Wilson--SFF