President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed decrees on Tuesday (8) at the Planalto palace creating four Sustainable Development Reserves in southern Amazonas state, in the corridor influenced by the BR-319 highway. Together the new units cover about 669,000 hectares. The ceremony marked Amazon Day, a Brazilian date celebrated on September 5. A separate decree expanded Sete Cidades National Park in Piauí state by 7,192 hectares, bringing it to 13,502 hectares.

According to Agência Brasil and Gazeta da Amazônia, the new reserves and their sizes are:

• Tupana Igapó-Açu I, in the municipality of Borba, with 114,076 hectares;
• Tupana Igapó-Açu II, in Beruri and Tapauá, with 422,100 hectares;
• Canaã, in Careiro and Autazes, with 109,607 hectares;
• Mirari, in Humaitá, with 22,775 hectares, aimed at protecting forest and aquatic environments.

The category, known in Brazil as RDS, lets residents keep using natural resources sustainably while protecting biodiversity and the agroextractivist way of life of local communities. Counting the expansion in Piauí, the measures protect about 676,000 hectares. The Manaus daily A Crítica noted that the decrees authorize the creation of the units in the road's area of influence.

The government's answer on the BR-319

The BR-319 links Manaus to Porto Velho. Lula promised to rebuild it during the 2022 campaign, and it still has unpaved stretches that worry socioenvironmental groups, A Crítica reported. At the ceremony, the president presented the new protected areas as the condition for settling what he called the "celeuma", the long dispute, around the road:

"We found a way to do it, demarcating whatever needs to be demarcated, demanding responsibility from the federal government, the states, every level of the federation, so we could tell the world: we will build a modern road that can carry the production of two Brazilian states, a road that is an example for the world."

The package ties infrastructure to standing-forest markets. The Brazilian Forest Service signed 40-year concession contracts for Forest Management Units II and III of the Humaitá National Forest (Flona), covering 162,700 hectares and completing the concession of all three units of the Flona, a combined 200,900 hectares under sustainable management. According to Gazeta da Amazônia, the contracts foresee R$ 240 million in investment, legal production of 2.54 million cubic meters of timber over 30 years, and 339 direct and 678 indirect jobs. Brazil now has 29 federal forest concession contracts covering 1.75 million hectares.

Public money and politics

The state development bank BNDES used the same ceremony to announce funding. The Amazon Fund will channel R$ 50.5 million in non-reimbursable money to the Naturezas Quilombolas project, run by the Fundação Guamá over 60 months to manage more than 16 quilombola territories, communities descended from people who escaped slavery, in the Legal Amazon. According to Gazeta da Amazônia, the Climate Fund approved R$ 180 million to restore more than 10,000 hectares in the Triunfo do Xingu environmental protection area in Pará, and the Floresta Viva initiative will receive R$ 5.3 million for restoration grants in the Xingu river basin, across Pará and Mato Grosso. Full protection, Lula argued, will come when society sees the profit from tourism in preserved areas, because it "will have enough money to justify that a standing forest is more profitable than a felled or burned one".

The event also carried political weight. It was Lula's first speech since the removal of Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues, an episode the president did not address, according to Folha de S.Paulo. Alongside Environment and Climate Change Minister João Paulo Capobianco and Amazonas vice-governor Serafim Corrêa (PSB), Lula attacked the environmental record of Jair Bolsonaro's government: "To destroy, you do not even need a meeting; all it takes is any crook who dislikes environmental rules taking over the government". Corrêa said Amazonas keeps 97% of its forest standing, yet "the people preserve the forest but feel the absence of the state". Lula travels to Piauí on Wednesday (9) for official and campaign events, in a state where the enlarged Sete Cidades park, in Brasileira and Piracuruca, is meant to shield endangered species and boost tourism.