Case Name: Ministério Público Federal vs. Sebastião da Costa Mariano (Operation Smoke and Climate Damage)

Summary

This is a Public Civil Action (ACP) with a request for urgent relief, filed by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) against Sebastião da Costa Mariano, due to illegal deforestation of an area of 903.22 hectares in the Municipality of Boca do Acre/AM, which occurred in 2021 and was confirmed through Operation Smoke. Between 2021 and September 2024, in the same location, the defendant allegedly set fires to vegetation with the aim of clearing and maintaining pastures for agriculture. The action expressly argues the relationship between deforestation and climate change and its extreme local and regional effects. It highlights that the main form of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil is through deforestation, highlighting the situation in the Amazon and Brazil's commitments to reducing deforestation in the biome. It indicates that the illegal deforestation being combated led to the emission of 534,613.750272 tons of carbon dioxide, which imposes the obligation to compensate for intermediate and residual material climate damages. It uses the calculation basis of the Amazon Fund to assign the value of US$ 5.00 for each ton of CO2 emitted, resulting in the quantification of the compensation at R$ 15,236,491.88. It requests the granting of preliminary provisional relief to, among other measures, remove the herd from the treated area, suspend access to financing and suspend registration in the CAR. As final requests, it requests (i) the conviction of the defendant to the obligation to repair the environmental damages through the recovery of the area; the conviction to pay compensation for intermediate and residual environmental material damages, for the social cost of the illicit act, with the restitution of the illegally obtained profits, in the amount of R$ 19,404,778.48; the obligation to pay for residual and intermediate material damages due to climate change, in the amount of R$15,236,491.88; the order to pay compensation corresponding to collective moral damages in the amount of R$9,702,389.24 and (ii) the reversal of the amounts of the order to the federal inspection bodies (IBAMA and ICMBio).

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Main norms mobilized

• Article 225 of the Federal Constitution (CRFB/88)
• Article 5th of the Federal Constitution (CRFB/88)
• Federal Constitution (CRFB/88)
• Forest Code (Federal Law 12.651/2012)
• National Environment Policy Act - PNMA (Federal Law 6.938/1981)
• National Policy on Climate Change Act - PNMC (Federal Law 12.187/2009)
• Paris Agreement (Federal Decree 9.073/2017)
• Unites Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - UNFCC (Federal Decree 2.652/1998)

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Case documents