Minister says current penalties are “inadequate to combat those who disregard” the ban on the use of firearms
The Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, said this Tuesday (17.Sep.2024) that, currently, any fire in Brazil is considered criminal. According to her, the penalties, today, are “inadequate to combat those who disrespect” the prohibition of the use of fire.
“Any fire is considered arson. There is a ban on the use of fire throughout the national territory.”, said the minister on the program “Good morning, Minister.“, from the EBC (Brazil Communications Company).We are experiencing a severe drought practically throughout the entire national territory and this prohibition characterizes any fire that is being set contrary to the law. And this constitutes a crime.”, he added.
Marina stated that the penalties applied today are “inadequate to combat those who disrespect the law, who use fire” and create a “dramatic situation” in Brazil.
“The sentence is 2 to 4 years in prison. When the sentence is light, sometimes it is transformed into some kind of alternative sentence. And yet you have an attitude like some judges who completely relax the sentence. In other words, there is a crime against the environment, a crime against public health, a crime that is being committed against Brazilian heritage and economy and we have a sentence that is very light.”, he declared.
“That’s why in the situation room we are working to increase the sentence.” he added.
According to the minister, there is “an effort that needs to be made in the direction of investigation” of the fires. “At this moment, the Federal Police has 52 open investigations“, he said. “One important thing is intelligence work. With intelligence work we can even find out who the masterminds are, who the masterminds are.”, he added.
The minister mentioned the large number of fires caused by human action. She highlighted the complexity of detecting these actions and prosecuting these people. According to Marina, there is a “climate terrorism”.
She stated: “One thing science is saying is that fires are not caused by lightning. The fires that are happening are caused by human action. Someone is setting fires.”.
And he continued: “This drought is happening in several places around the world, in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay. In other parts of the world, we also have fires. The difference is that here in Brazil there is this criminal alliance of a kind of climate terrorism where people are using climate change to make the problem even worse. This is a crime against the public interest, against public finances, it is a crime that should definitely have an aggravated penalty.”.
Brazil recorded 2,329 fire outbreaks on Monday (16.Sep.2024). The data is from the system BDBurnings of Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), released this Tuesday (17th September). The Amazon accounts for the largest share of occurrences, with 1,378 – or 59.2%.
Read more:
#moment #fire #criminal #Marina