Congress relaxes environmental licensing and raises alarm among experts - OPINION - DEC 08, 2025
- Ana Cunha-Busch
- Dec 7, 2025
- 3 min read
Congress relaxes environmental licensing and raises alarm among experts.
Last week, the National Congress approved one of the most impactful and worrying measures for Brazilian environmental policy in recent years. By overturning most of the presidential vetoes on the so-called Devastation Bill, parliamentarians reinstated provisions of the new General Law on Environmental Licensing that relax essential stages of control, evaluation, and prevention of environmental impacts.
With the decision, mechanisms that allow self-licensing in various types of projects, expand the License by Adhesion and Commitment (LAC) without prior technical analysis, and significantly reduce the role of bodies such as Ibama, Funai, and institutions responsible for the protection of indigenous territories, quilombola territories, and conservation units, are once again in force. In practice, this is the adoption of a more fragile, less technical, and more vulnerable licensing model that can cause irreversible damage. The deregulation doesn't only affect the environmental area. Its effects directly impact the safety of millions of Brazilians who depend on the integrity of biomes, water quality, and the preservation of traditional territories. The legislative change also threatens biodiversity, increases pressure on already vulnerable areas, and compromises the country's internationally agreed-upon climate goals.
The Minister of the Environment herself, Marina Silva, described this review as a kind of dismantling of environmental guarantees, stating that without the safeguards that have been removed, the country is more exposed to avoidable damage. She also indicated that the government is considering taking the issue to the Supreme Federal Court, precisely because it understands that weakening licensing violates everyone's constitutional right to a balanced environment.
The arguments that licensing "hinders" development or represents mere bureaucracy do not hold up when confronted with reality. Environmental licensing is a tool for prevention, not impediment. It exists to reduce risks, guarantee legal security, and avoid tragedies like those Brazil has already witnessed in different regions and sectors. Weakening it does not result in efficiency, but in uncertainty, inequality, and potential future disasters.
This decision reveals a profound misalignment between what the country needs and what part of its political representation has chosen to prioritize. At a time when the whole world is pressing for real climate solutions, energy transition, and ecosystem protection, Brazil, one of the richest countries in biodiversity, is moving in the opposite direction, weakening policies that should be non-negotiable.
Even so, there is an important point: Brazilian civil society has demonstrated enormous capacity for mobilization and resistance. Environmental organizations, scientists, traditional communities, and committed managers remain alert and active. This moment demands precisely that: vigilance, participation, and pressure so that setbacks do not become the norm.
The country has the technical competence, natural wealth, and social strength to lead a positive agenda. But this will only be possible if we understand that economic development and environmental protection are not opposites—they are complementary and indispensable to each other.
The Congressional decision reminds us that the path to sustainability is not guaranteed. It is a daily, political, and collective construction. And it is up to us, as a society, to prevent misguided choices from compromising the future of the next generations.
Author: Bianca Vieira
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