Serra da Canastra National Park

The conflict

The sum of such interests - diamond, quartzite and non-indemnified rural landowners - has generated an environment suitable to the appearance and the evolution of a strong movement towards a drastic modification of the Serra da Canastra National Park's boundaries.

The political pressures have culminated with the estabilishment of a working group (GT), instituted by the President of the Republic within the Home Affairs, in January 2006. The GT's objectives are: to promote studies about the legislation and administrative measures that created and aimed to consolidate the Serra da Canastra National Park, besides to identify the source of conflicts related to the land use, and to propose legal and administrative measures necessary to the possible review of the National Park's boundaries, as well as to provide the institutional safety for its protection.

The GT final report pointed four groups of different problems, whose solution would have to be calculated:

The implementation of a new electric power transmission line;
The traditional agricultural and cattle-breeding activity;
The quartzite extraction;
The diamond research/exploration.

The IBAMA's technical team received, thus, the order to prepare a bill with new limits. However, due to the fact that they didn't find a technical base to meet this demand, trying to maintain the Park and avoid wastes to the Government, the IBAMA technicians carefully assessed the problems pointed by the GT and presented specific and feasible solutions for each of them, since the agrarian issue to the diamond mining, showing that changing the area's boundaries is not necessary.

Nevertheless, although the technicians discussed the issue and pointed solutions, the requirements and pressures towards the redefinition of the Park's boundaries remain and in the next days, a Bill (PL 1448/2007), created by the federal representative Carlos Melles, which proposes the exclusion of 48,000 hectares of the Serra da Canastra National Park's area will be under proceduring at the House of Representatives' plenary session. According to the proposal, the Park would be reduced by 25%, and would compose what has been called "mosaic of protected areas", in agreement with three alterations:

1. Alteration in the Serra da Canastra National Park's boundaries, reducing it by 48,000 hectares;

2. Transformation of the areas removed from the Park into EPAs (Environmental Protection Areas), a category that allows the direct use of natural resources and known to be ineffective as a protection measure;

3. Creation of a new protected area, probably Natural Monument, in the source and Hydrological basin of the Samburá River, geographic source of the São Francisco River, keeping the involved areas as private properties.

In practice, all the options lead to the immediate risk of losing one of the most important biologic areas and a priceless heritage of Brazil, which can never be recovered.


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	The conflict The sum of such interests - diamond, quartzite and non-indemnified rural landowners - has generated an environment suitable to the appearance and the evolution of a strong movement towards a drastic modification of the Serra da Canastra National Park's boundaries. The political pressures have culminated with the estabilishment of a working group (GT), instituted by the President of the Republic within the Home Affairs, in January 2006. The GT's objectives are: to promote studies about the legislation and administrative measures that created and aimed to consolidate the Serra da Canastra National Park, besides to identify the source of conflicts related to the land use, and to propose legal and administrative measures necessary to the possible review of the National Park's boundaries, as well as to provide the institutional safety for its protection. The GT final report pointed four groups of different problems, whose solution would have to be calculated: The implementation of a new electric power transmission line; The traditional agricultural and cattle-breeding activity; The quartzite extraction; The diamond research/exploration. The IBAMA's technical team received, thus, the order to prepare a bill with new limits. However, due to the fact that they didn't find a technical base to meet this demand, trying to maintain the Park and avoid wastes to the Government, the IBAMA technicians carefully assessed the problems pointed by the GT and presented specific and feasible solutions for each of them, since the agrarian issue to the diamond mining, showing that changing the area's boundaries is not necessary. Nevertheless, although the technicians discussed the issue and pointed solutions, the requirements and pressures towards the redefinition of the Park's boundaries remain and in the next days, a Bill (PL 1448/2007), created by the federal representative Carlos Melles, which proposes the exclusion of 48,000 hectares of the Serra da Canastra National Park's area will be under proceduring at the House of Representatives' plenary session. According to the proposal, the Park would be reduced by 25%, and would compose what has been called "mosaic of protected areas", in agreement with three alterations: 1. Alteration in the Serra da Canastra National Park's boundaries, reducing it by 48,000 hectares; 2. Transformation of the areas removed from the Park into EPAs (Environmental Protection Areas), a category that allows the direct use of natural resources and known to be ineffective as a protection measure; 3. Creation of a new protected area, probably Natural Monument, in the source and Hydrological basin of the Samburá River, geographic source of the São Francisco River, keeping the involved areas as private properties. In practice, all the options lead to the immediate risk of losing one of the most important biologic areas and a priceless heritage of Brazil, which can never be recovered.