Ibama walkout sparks fears of environmental decline once fire season returns

After seeing deforestation and fire rates drop in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes in 2023, Brazil is at risk of seeing a resurgence in the loss of native vegetation amid a strike that has been going on for over a month by employees of Ibama, the federal agency responsible for protecting and monitoring the environment.

The government, which has capitalized on its international image of reclaiming Brazil’s environmental agenda and protecting the Amazon, has not agreed to raise the salaries of Ibama’s approximately 4,000 employees after a series of meetings. The unfolding crisis has now reached the inspection work carried out inside the forest.

Last week, the coordinating team of Prevfogo — a group of about 50 civil servants responsible for running operations and hiring firefighters to deal with blazes around Brazil — decided to suspend all its external work.

The walkout has a ripple effect, as it is these employees who hire some 2,000 firefighters each year to fight fires throughout the country for six months during the dry season.

By stopping work, the Prevfogo employees are no longer able to carry out a crucial stage of their work, which is to negotiate and organize these teams to carry out cleanups in the forest, clearing areas ahead of time to prevent fires from spreading during the dry months. This mission should already be underway in the Amazon, but it hasn’t started yet and isn’t expected to because of the strike.

In many cases, the...