Brazil's 'beef caucus' tightens noose around pro-environment ministries

Brazil's Congress has stripped powers away from the country's new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, both led by women environmentalists.

The measure, which easily cleared the lower house on Wednesday, passed by a vote of 51 to nine in the Senate — the latest in a series of setbacks for the Lula administration in Congress.

The move on Thursday shows the increasing power of Brazil's so-called "beef caucus," shorthand for cattle businesses and other large-scale agriculture that together control the majority of both legislative chambers in the country.

Objecting to what he called "constraints on agribusiness that could harm exports," Senator Carlos Viana said during the voting session on Thursday that "the main points [of the caucus] have been addressed."

The changes prevent the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, led by Sonia Guajajara, from legalising the boundaries of any new Indigenous territories and keep the Ministry of Environment, run by Marina Silva, from managing a national property registry that's a key tool for monitoring illegal deforestation.

These and other authorities will be transferred to other federal government branches.

The "beef caucus" opposes the legalisation of more Indigenous lands. It also opposes measures to control deforestation, which rose sharply under the last administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula could still veto all or parts of the measure, but any changes would have to go back through Congress.

But the vote marks a defeat for a president who took office vowing "Brazil is back" in the fight against climate crisis and promising to reverse the surging destruction of the Amazon under Bolsonaro.

Lula in hot water

The showdown over the measure highlighted Lula's difficulties negotiating with Congress, where conservative parties sympathetic to the powerful agribusiness lobby scored big gains in Brazil's October elections, even as the veteran leftist narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in the presidential race.

Lula also suffered a defeat in Congress on Tuesday, when the lower house passed a controversial bill barring Indigenous reservations on lands where native peoples were not present in 1988, when the current Constitution was adopted.

Indigenous groups argue that the cutoff violates their rights, given that many native peoples were forced from their ancestral lands, especially during Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

Critics argue that the leftist leader Lula did not try hard enough to avert the action in Congress.

Last week, the president dismissed that criticism saying that "we shouldn't be scared of politics."

Allies of the president also argue that he retains ultimate authority over the environment and Indigenous affairs.