Ministério Público Federal v. de Rezende

On April 16, 2021, a Federal Environmental and Agrarian Court in Brazil issued a preliminary decision granting an injunction against a Brazilian farmer (Dauro Parreiras de Rezende), ordering the removal of a cattle herd from farms that caused deforestation. The case was brought by the Amazon Task Force, established by the federal public prosecutors in 2018 to combat illegal deforestation in Amazonia, through the Ministério Público Federal (MPF), or the federal prosecution office. The MPF brought a tort case against de Rezende for causing the deforestation of 2,488.56 hectares (the equivalent of 4,650 football fields) between 2011 and 2018 in the Amazon, in violation of the right to a healthy environment guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. In its preliminary decision, the Court also suspended any paperwork related to the movement of cattle to or from the farms. The MPF further seeks up to R$ 85.4 million (about USD $17 million) in monetary damages from de Rezende for (i) residual material and intermediate climate damage, i.e., the value of emissions that deforestation has caused; (ii) collective pain and suffering as a violation of human rights (moral damages); (iii) intermediate and residual material environmental damages; and (iv) compensation for illegal profits from deforestation. On June 22, 2021, the defendant filed a defense. It claimed that, despite being the owner of the land, it had not committed a criminal act, since the area had been cleared by illegal occupants. He argued that the government was objectively responsible, as it had failed to monitor the environment of the occupants of Fazenda Santa Luiza and the Pae Antimari area. He said that he had not remained inert in the face of the occupations. He explained that, given the invasions of his possession, INCRA had not issued the Title of Recognition of Domain (TRD) and that, as a result, he was unable to apply for environmental licensing before the Amazonas Institute for Environmental Protection (IPAAM) or the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA). It argued that the area covered by the ACP is not a special preservation area, but a conversion area intended for alternative land use. As for the material damage to the environment, he pointed out that it had been delimited with imprecise data, based on a generic opinion from IBAMA, used universally in other lawsuits. About collective moral damage, he argued that there was no evidence in the case file of any particular social harm to the community in terms of morale. It claimed that there was no causal link between its authorship and the materiality of the environmental damage since the area was degraded by the invaders. It requested (i) that the environmental CPA be extinguished, without resolving the merits; (ii) that the reversal of the burden of proof be prohibited, to the benefit of the defendant; (iii) that the action be dismissed.