The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) launched, on December 5, 2018, the PlantarFlorestas program. This program corresponds to the National Plan for the Development of Planted Forests provided for in Federal Decree No. 8.375/2014, which defines the Agricultural Policy for Planted Forests. The program, which was the subject of a public consultation, has actions planned for the next ten years and aims to increase commercial cultivation areas in Brazil by 2 million hectares. PlantarFlorestas presents a diagnosis of the sector, highlighting the main environmental, social and economic aspects associated with the management of planted forests and their industry; the potential relationships between the different public policies related to the subject and analyzes bottlenecks and opportunities for the sector, proposing, at the end, a list of National Forest Objectives (ONF) and indicative actions to reach such objectives. Among these ONF is the institutional strengthening of the planted forests sector; the increase of the demand for forest products; the increase of wood biomass shares in the energy matrix; the expansion of competitiveness in the export of agroforestry products; the attraction of more private investments and the adequacy of credit and rural risk management policies to the planted forest sector.

On February 28, 2019, the judgment of the direct actions of unconstitutionality (ADINs) of Federal Law 12.651 / 2012 (“Forest Code”) by the Supreme Court of Justice completed one year. However, to date, the publication of the respective judgment has not been published, which would give publicity to the full vote of the Ministers who, in the end, considered the majority of the Articles of the Forest Code under question to be unconstitutional, or “to be interpreted in accordance with other provisions of said law”.

Considering that the Forest Code is the main regulatory framework of the Brazilian forestry policy, the publication of the judgment is of particular importance to bring legal certainty and progress in the effective application of the law. The judgment is also greatly awaited to clarify the definition of “ecological identity”, considering that the judgment ruled that the compensation of the Legal Reserve area of rural property can only occur between properties situated in areas within similar ecological identity (art. 48, § 2).

In a recent ruling, the Third Panel of Superior Court of Justice unanimously decided that, even though §3rd of article 225 of the Public Records Law requires that judicial discussions concerning rural properties require detailed real property’s description via geo-referred survey, it would only be required for the lawsuits involving properties’ dismemberment, reorganization and ownership changes. Based on the interpretation of article 10 of Decree No. 4.449/2001, STJ ruled that the rural property identification by means of geo-referred survey would only be required in cases that could result in amendments to the property’s registration. Hence, the appellant’s claim to require the geo-referred survey prior to the processing of the possessory claim was dismissed, as the subject of the lawsuit was the possession of the rural property and would not cause amendments to its registries. Reference to REsp 1646179.

On January 20, 2019, the CONSEMA Resolution 390/2018 of December 20, 2018 entered in force in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, providing for the procedures and criteria for the environmental licensing of the planted forest silviculture activity. Among the provisions of said Resolution are the classification of enterprises for licensing purposes, the rites to be adopted for licensing (hypotheses of licensing by registry, simplified licensing or ordinary licensing), the form of regularization of enterprises that operate without an environmental license, the procedures for expansion of enterprises and for the renewal of licenses, the form of request for the suppression of native vegetation or intervention in the Permanent Preservation Area and the procedure for deactivation of the forestry project.