Ibama does not respond to deforestation alerts

A feature on the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo newspaper revealed plans by the Minister of the Environment to replace INPE (a governmental institute) by a private company to do the satellite and real time monitoring of Amazon deforestation. The feature also highlights that in the first five months of Bolsonaro’s government, IBAMA has applied the smallest number of infractions per deforestation alert in the past 4 years. Until mid-May, INPE sent 3,860 deforestation alerts to environmental agencies (at federal and state level), an average of 28.6 alerts per day. However, Ibama only responded to 850 infractions, an average of 6.2 per day. The newspaper writes that, since taking office, Minister Salles has criticized INPE’s monitoring work and defending the adoption of a higher resolution system - a private supplier was found visiting the minister at least twice in 2019.