This May 8, 2018 photo released by the Brazilian Environmental and Renewable Natural Resources Institute shows an illegally deforested area in Brazil's Amazon basin.
Brazil aims to begin privatising the management of its national parks this year, including some of its most famous natural tourist sites, the country's Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said on Wednesday.
The government aims to privatise as many as possible, he said.
Salles listed Foz do Iguacu, one of the world's largest waterfalls that straddles the border with Paraguay and Argentina, as one of many famous national parks around the country that could be brought under private management.
A system to carry out the privatisation will be in place "definitely this year," Salles told reporters following a hearing in Brazil's Senate.
"We'll see how many we are able to do.
Fears voiced by conservationists
Activists and environmentalists have said they fear right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who assumed office in January 2019, will roll back environmental oversight in the country in favour of economic development.
On the campaign trail, Bolsonaro criticised fines for environmental infractions, considered pulling out of the Paris Agreement on climate and at one point proposed that the agriculture and environment ministries be merged.
The effort is being made to do the maximum possible without disturbing a process that relies both on an economic model but also on well executed sustainability."
The move would involve privatising oversight for territories demarcated as "conservation units" that are generally managed by government agency Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio).
The institute is named for Mendes, the defender of the Amazon rainforest who was murdered for his work. Salles called Mendes "irrelevant" in a television interview earlier this year.
Salles listed Fernando de Noronha island –– an exclusive getaway for underwater divers –– as well as Pau Brasil, Chapada dos Veadeiros and Itatiaia national parks as also being potential targets for private management.
New body to regulate fines
Salles said the environment ministry was seeking to create a new body for resolving environmental fines.
The structure that Salles called the "nucleus of conciliation of fines" would have the power to authorise, modify or cancel fines as well as reach accords with environmental offenders who confess infractions.
Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo first reported the initiative was under consideration last month.
Fines are a key tool employed by environmental agency Ibama to enforce its regulations.
The current model, in which it is extremely rare that fines are actually collected, cannot continue, Salles said.
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