📋 Tender Overview
The Federal Attorney Generals Office (AGU) obtained in court the immediate interdiction of irregular economic activities that prevented the recovery of degraded areas in the high-altitude fields of the Atlantic Forest biome. Plantings of corn, soybeans, beans, potatoes and fruit and vegetables, as well as livestock farming and illegal timber trade, were identified on the Caiapia and Congonha Farms, located in Bom Jesus (RS).
The public environmental civil action was filed by AGU, representing the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), against private owners and tenants of the farms. The action was proposed within the scope of AGU-Recupera, a strategic group focused on acting on priority and strategic legal demands that aim to protect and restore Brazilian biomes and cultural heritage.
The defendants were charged by Ibama during Operation Campereada, in 2016. According to the authority, around 110 hectares of protected vegetation were removed without authorization, according to the infraction notice and technical reports produced during federal inspection. At the site, the existence of various crops, livestock activity and illegal timber trade was found.
Environmental damage
In the request for urgent protection, the Federal Regional Prosecutors Office of the 4th Region (PRF4) maintained that the continuity of agroforestry activities prevents the natural regeneration of the ecosystem and maintains environmental damage. If the deforested area continues to be explored during the preparation and beginning of the execution of the Plan or Project for the Recovery of Degraded or Altered Areas (PRAD), or during the process, there will inevitably be greater consolidation of deforestation and an increasingly greater difficulty in recovering the area, warned federal prosecutor Leandro Ferreira Bernardo, who is working on the case.
PRF4 also requested the suspension of tax incentives and credit lines. It cannot be accepted that anyone who promotes environmental damage and is inert regarding their obligation to repair benefits from public money. The maintenance of tax benefits and special lines of credit for environmental degraders subjects the community to a double penalty: it stops enjoying an ecologically balanced environment and sees part of the public budget finance the activity that degrades the environment, argued Bernardo.
Protected area
When considering the request, the court of the 9th Federal Court of Porto Alegre recognized as uncontroversial the occurrence of intervention in an environmentally protected area, based on a valid infraction notice. The decision prohibits the defendants from carrying out any economic exploration activity in the area subject to the assessment and from participating in financing, and determines the suspension of tax benefits. Furthermore, the Court ordered the registration of the action in the registration of the properties, so that third parties and possible successors are aware of the environmental irregularity, guaranteeing repair of the damage.
Regarding the initiative, the federal prosecutor highlights: The action is the result of a broad interinstitutional joint effort, coordinated by the AGU-Recupera Environmental Strategic Group, which aims to curb the practice of large-scale environmental damage and recover degraded biomes, especially through the filing of environmental public civil actions.
Reference process: 5071744-84.2025.4.04.7100/RS
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