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An indigenous man takes part in a protest in Manaus, Amazon

Photo: Michael Dantas / AFP

Brazil's lower house of parliament has limited the powers of ministries for indigenous people and the environment. MPs voted on Wednesday in favour of a bill that would give responsibility for allocating new indigenous protected areas back to the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Environment would lose oversight of the registration of rural land use – a crucial tool in the fight against illegal logging. The Senate has yet to approve the bill.

Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva created the ministry for indigenous people when he returned to office this year. However, the powers conferred on him were only provisional and still required the approval of Parliament.

Second defeat for Lula in 24 hours

Wednesday's vote was the second defeat for Lula in 24 hours. On Tuesday, MPs had already passed a law that makes it more difficult to expand and allocate indigenous protected areas. It stipulates that only land inhabited by indigenous people at the time of the promulgation of the current constitution in 1988 may be recognized as a protected area.

It was only in April that Lula designated six new indigenous territories and guaranteed the indigenous people the exclusive use of their natural resources. Experts see the protected areas as a bulwark against deforestation of the Amazon rainforest – one of the greatest challenges in the fight against climate change.

According to the last census from 2010, around 800,000 indigenous people live in Brazil, most of them in reserves that make up 13.75 percent of the country's area. Under the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, the allocation of land to indigenous people had stalled. Under his presidency, deforestation also increased sharply.

Lula's ambitious plans threaten to fail

When Lula took office in December, he promised to turn away from the policies of his predecessor and declared that he would work vigorously to protect the indigenous people and the Amazon forest.

Lula's ambitious plans, however, threaten to fail in the face of political reality. Despite the distribution of some ministries and other high government posts to center-right parties, he was unable to secure parliamentary majorities for all his projects.

aeh/AFP