Brazil environmental workers propose deal to end strike holding up oil permits

By Fabio Teixeira

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Brazil's federal environment workers on Tuesday presented the government with a deal to end their strike that has curtailed efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest and slowed permitting for oil and gas projects.

The union Ascema and its affiliates voted to strike last month, demanding better wages and working conditions.

The proposed deal gives up on most demands beyond a salary hike, with Ascema in a letter blasting the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for negotiating with "neglect, disrespect, disdain and contempt for those who work on an agenda fundamental to the government's objectives."

The government has received and will analyze the deal, it said in a statement to Reuters. Lula's office and federal environmental agency Ibama did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Lula has staked his international reputation on protecting the Amazon and restoring Brazil's climate leadership, following environmental rollbacks and surging deforestation under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

"This government has not kept its promise," said Wallace Lopes, a union leader with Ascema.

Lopes vowed that even if the strike ended, a broader work slowdown that began in January at Ibama would continue and hold up environmental licensing for oil production and other industrial projects.

He said Ibama employees were prepared to maintain the slowdown until the United Nations climate summit COP30, set to take place in the Amazonian town of Belem, in 2025.

Lopes expects the ongoing dispute to directly affect deforestation numbers, making them worse in 2024 than in 2023, he told Reuters.

According to oil lobby group IBP, the lack of licences is having a 200,000 barrels per day impact on production, while Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras said lack of licences has affected their operations in three oil fields.

The proposed deal comes after a judge from Brazil's Superior Court of Justice ordered - at the government's request - that Ibama's employees resume licensing and forest fire prevention activities despite being on strike.

(Reporting by Fabio Teixeira; Editing by William Maclean and Stephen Coates)