The Environment Secretaries of the 9 Brazilian States who are members of the GCF Task Force convened for a Forum of Environmental Secretaries of the Legal Amazon and the Brazilian Steering Committee of the GCF Task Force in Acre, Brazil last week. This forum provides an important space for the Secretaries to discuss common challenges and solutions, and to advance on implementation of joint initiatives such as the Manaus Action Plan for a New Forest Economy of the GCF Task Force.
The below is translated from the Government of Acre’s Press Release of April 15, 2023:
Environment Secretaries visit the Environmental Monitoring Center and the Forest Nursery
Managers who are part of the Forum of Environment Secretaries of the Legal Amazon visited, this Friday, 14, the Integrated Center for Environmental Geoprocessing (Cigma) and the Forest Nursery.
The secretaries are in Rio Branco to participate in the second Regular Meeting of the Secretaries of Environment of the Legal Amazon and the Steering Committee of the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF), which occurs until this Saturday, 15.
The center, which is part of the Secretariat of Environment and Indigenous Policies (Semapi), offers qualified information to guide government policies. The Secretary of Environment and Indigenous Policies, Julie Messias, who is also president of the Forum, explained that the Center has trained professionals and that the information is based on official data.
“What Semapi does, through Cigma, is to qualify information that helps guide public policies on the environment, climate, and sustainability. Cigma is an integrated center that concentrates data through geospatial tools.”
While at Cigma, the secretaries visited the office of the Rural Environmental Cadastre (CAR) and participated in a meeting with the Igarapé Institute.
Another place the secretaries visited was the Forest Nursery. The space is a seedling production unit that serves the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA/AC), social projects of environmental promotion of municipalities, schools and society.
The Amazonas Secretary, Eduardo Taveira, said that the Forum meetings are productive due to the exchange of information and the alignment of actions: “Sharing the instruments that are made both for environmental monitoring, as we saw in the Cigma, as well as advances and challenges for agendas such as the Rural Environmental Registry are important in this exchange of experiences. The successful model of the Forest Nursery implemented by Semapi with species suitable for productive recovery of degraded areas is an example replicable for other states.”
The secretary of Mato Grosso, Mauren Lazzaretti, said that the meetings guide the exchange of experiences among secretaries.
“It is possible to advance consistently in several points of environmental public policies, such as the fight against climate change, Rural Environmental Registry, reduction of illegal deforestation and fires. The states are responsible for 90% of the execution of environmental public policies in Brazil.”
For the full press release in Portuguese and pictures, see Secretários de Meio Ambiente visitam Centro de Monitoramento Ambiental e Viveiro da Floresta – Noticias do Acre (agencia.ac.gov.br)