Brazil is on the verge of passing a law project that represents one of the most serious environmental setbacks in recent decades.
Known among civil society organizations as the “Devastation law project,” it proposes changes that would legalize deforestation, reduce protections for sensitive biomes, and weaken environmental oversight and enforcement mechanisms.
What’s this means:
- For Brazil: The law project undermines the country’s climate goals, endangers biodiversity, and directly threatens the ways of life of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities.
- For the World: Environmental dismantling in Brazil has a direct negative impact on global climate stability. The Amazon and other Brazilian biomes play a central role in climate regulation and in containing the climate crisis.
- For the European Union: This scenario is incompatible with the environmental and human rights standards the EU requires in its international agreements — including the EU-Mercosur Association Agreement — and violates key multilateral environmental commitments.
What the Consequences Are:
If passed, this law project will:
- Accelerate both legal and illegal deforestation;
- Increase greenhouse gas emissions;
- Undermine the environmental safeguards required in trade agreements;
- Severely damage Brazil’s international environmental credibility.
Moreover, it will force the European Union to choose: to uphold trade relationships without accountability, or to stand firm on its own environmental and human rights values.
How We Got Here
This legislative proposal results from political pressure that prioritizes extractive agribusiness over environmental preservation and the rights of traditional peoples. The dismantling of environmental governance and tolerance of illegal activities have opened the door for this type of rollback. Brazilian civil society continues to resist, but faces a hostile political environment and urgently needs international solidarity.
Conclusion
Given this alarming situation, we respectfully urge the European Union to:
- Publicly and firmly denounce the advance of this bill.
- Reinforce its environmental commitments in all diplomatic and trade negotiations with Brazil.
- Make any progress in bilateral relations conditional on effective compliance with both national and international social and environmental standards.
- Environmental protection is not a local issue — it is a global pact. We believe the European Union, as a leader in sustainability and human rights, can and must act to prevent this setback from becoming reality.
The Devastation law project* (also known as PL 2159/20210, is a law project that aims to change the environmental licensing process in Brazil.
The law project has been the target of criticism and resistance from several environmental organizations, which consider it a setback for environmental protection and social security. The law project was approved by the Federal Senate in May 2025, but still needs to be voted on by the Chamber of Deputies to become law.
Main points of the Devastation Bill:
- Self-licensing:* The law project allows many enterprises, including medium-sized ones and those with polluting potential, to obtain environmental licenses automatically, simply by submitting an online form, without the need for prior analysis by environmental agencies.
- Special License (LAE): The proposal creates a Special License (LAE) for enterprises considered “strategic” by the Government Council, which can also be obtained automatically.
- Reduction of requirements: The law project reduces the requirements for environmental licensing, simplifying procedures and reducing the need for technical analyses and environmental impact studies.
- Transfer of power to states and municipalities: The law project allows states and municipalities to define which activities require environmental licensing, creating regulatory fragmentation and legal uncertainty.