Amapá

Brazil

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In September, 2025, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) filed a Public Civil Action (ACP) with a request for urgent relief filed by against the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras), due to the granting of authorization for Pre-Operational Assessment (APO) in Block FZA-M-59, located in the Foz do Amazonas Basin, a stage prior to the license for drilling offshore oil wells. The objective is to annul Decision Order No. 33/2025/Gabin, issued by the President of IBAMA, which granted the authorization and the non-issuance of an operating license for well drilling until the licensing irregularities are remedied. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) argues that the aforementioned Decision Order is null and void because it contradicts environmental licensing regulations, international obligations, and a technical opinion from the agency itself, which recommended the denial of the license due to serious flaws in the Oiled Fauna Protection and Care Plan (PPAF). Furthermore, the nullity is based on the absence of an Environmental Assessment of the Sedimentary Area (AAAS), the failure to conduct prior, free, and informed consultations with the affected indigenous, quilombola, traditional fishing, and riverside communities, and the failure to consider some of these communities in the environmental studies, despite the prediction of various impacts on them, in violation of ILO Convention No. 169 and the Federal Constitution. It further argues that the licensing documents do not consider extreme weather events, violating IBAMA regulations, the National Policy on Climate Change, and the Forest Code. The argument is that the authorization granted violates the precautionary and preventive principles, representing a serious risk to the populations and coastal ecosystems of the Amazon River mouth, a region that shelters mangroves and reefs. It maintains that IBAMA's decision ignores the global climate emergency and the international commitments undertaken by Brazil, such as the Paris Agreement, and that the expansion of oil exploration goes against the energy transition and decarbonization policy, perpetuating an unsustainable model based on fossil fuels, which affects Brazil's credibility on the international climate agenda, especially on the eve of COP-30. Thus, the authorization granted without climate impact studies and without AAAS would put Brazil in breach of its commitments to mitigate climate change. In provisional relief, it requests (i) the immediate suspension of Order No. 33/2025/Gabin, or, subsidiarily, the prohibition of granting the Operating License (LO) until the necessary environmental and climate studies are carried out, as well as free, prior and informed consultation with the affected communities; (ii) the prohibition of Petrobras or related companies from entering the villages located in the Uaçá, Galibi and Juminã Indigenous Territories without prior authorization from FUNAI. On the merits, it requests the definitive annulment of the order and the acts resulting therefrom and the suspension of the licensing until the identified nullities are remedied.

The preliminary injunction was partially granted by the 1st Federal Civil Court of the SJAP, which upheld the authorization of the APO, but ordered Petrobras to refrain from direct contact with indigenous and traditional communities without the presence of FUNAI.

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office filed an interlocutory appeal with the TRF1 (1025450-83.2025.4.01.0000), seeking the complete suspension of the authorization.

In its defense, IBAMA requested the complete dismissal of the plaintiff's claims, with recognition of the legality of Decision Order No. 33/2025/Gabin and the regularity of the environmental licensing. It argued that the challenged act was technically sound and without any illegality. Finally, it requested the full maintenance of the licensing and the denial of the injunction sought by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office.

Petrobras, in its defense, requested that the claims be dismissed due to a lack of factual and legal grounds to support them. The defense was based on the legality of the environmental licensing process conducted by IBAMA, the absence of procedural irregularities or violation of indigenous rights, and finally, it maintained compliance with all applicable legal and technical requirements.

On December 19, 2018, Brazil’s Federal Environment Agency (“IBAMA”), filed a public civil action (environmental class-action) against Souza Brilhante EIRELI seeking compensation for environmental and climate damages based on an infringement notice for illegal wood storage without an environmental license. 

This public civil action is part of a set of 9 lawsuits brought by IBAMA on the same grounds, but against different defendants, to question illegal wood deposits and climate damage. 

The plaintiff alleges that the storage of wood without proven origin is associated with illegal deforestation and predatory exploitation in the Amazon biome. Thus, it seeks reparation for environmental damages provoked by it, including (i) the damage caused to flora and fauna, (ii) soil erosion, (iii) contribution to global warming. As for the climate damage, it claims that the unlawful conduct not only removed carbon sinks from the forest, but also caused the release of carbon into the atmosphere. 

The plaintiff seeks redress through the determination of (i) an obligation to restore the vegetation in an area equivalent to that estimated by IBAMA, based on the volume of logs seized, amounting to 14.90763 hectares, ideally in an area of the same biome in Indigenous Land, Conservation Unit or Agrarian Reform Settlement Project and (ii) an obligation to pay the climate damage based on the Carbon Social Cost (CSC) in the amount of R$1,447,650.20. It claims, based on the polluter pays principle, that the climate damage represents an external social cost that is not internalized by the illegal deforestation, leaving it to society. It also argues that climate damage can be quantified on an individual scale by multiplying the estimated GHG emissions of the activity by the CSC. In this case, IBAMA uses the Amazon Fund methodology to estimate emissions based on the area of the Amazon biome considered deforested, summing up to 5,471.0892 tons of carbon.

The plaintiff requests, as an injunction: (i) suspension of financing and tax incentives and access to credit lines by the offender, (ii) unavailability of assets in the estimated amount for the obligation of the vegetation restorage and the obligation to compensate the climate damage, and (iii) judicial restraint order of the illicit polluting activity. On the merits, it requests the defendant's conviction in the obligation to do - to recover an area equivalent to that deforested - and the obligation to pay - in the amount related to the social cost of carbon.

In its response, the defendant preliminarily alleged passive illegitimacy due to lack of evidence relating the defendant to the deforestation and the ineptitude of the initial petition. He also claimed the absence of liability for lack of evidence that the defendant was to blame for the damage, in addition to not having any interference over the area where the alleged deforestation was carried out.

Subsequently, a judgment was delivered upholding the claims. The defendant's arguments were refuted and it was affirmed that the infraction notice was coated with the requirements of validity and delineates the environmental damage. The allegation of passive illegitimacy was also refuted, stating that, in the environmental field, civil liability of a purely objective nature prevails. Thus, the defendant was condemned (i) to make an obligation to recover the area, and to prepare and comply with a reforestation project for the deforested area, under penalty of a fine, and (ii) to pay compensation for property damage, in case of impossibility of recovering the degraded area, in an amount to be defined in the settlement phase, by arbitration.

In view of the sentence, IBAMA filed a motion for clarification requesting that the defendant be ordered to pay the amount of R$ 1,447,650.20 related to the social cost of carbon, on which the sentence did not rule.

Subsequently, an integrative judgment was issued in which the court remedied the omission of the previous decision by including in the conviction the obligation to pay for the social cost of carbon.

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