Brazil has already experienced severe consequences of climate change. Recently, floods in the southern region have caused hundreds of deaths, displaced thousands of people and led to financial damage of more than US $3 billion¹. Even so, Congress has been working against environmental conservation and mechanisms for tackling climate change. We are particularly concerned about draft bill number 364/2019 (ref. ²), which will put Brazilian non-forest vegetation under attack by removing protection from 48 million hectares of native vegetation across the country³. If approved, this bill will allow vegetation removal in those areas; these areas could then be used for another activity, such as agriculture — which is being used as justification for the bill’s approval.

The Brazilian House of Deputies proposed and approved the bill in March 2024, which was forwarded to the Federal Senate³. If approved there, it will only require presidential approval. The first version of this bill proposed allowing non-forest vegetation, including natural grasslands, to be removed only in the Atlantic rainforest. But now the bill applies to all Brazilian biomes. After President Lula’s election in 2023, the government was expected to have a new attitude towards environmental protection — mainly by avoiding deforestation and implementing climate change mitigation. However, this bill and other environmental setbacks are currently in progress, and have a real chance of approval⁴. Although scientists have already warned about the imminent effects of this bill^3,5, here we show how it could spatially affect Brazilian biomes and contextualize the consequences amid the climate crisis.

巴西已经经历了气候变化的严重后果。最近，南部地区的洪水已造成数百人死亡，数千人流离失所，并造成超过 30 亿美元的经济损失¹。即便如此，国会一直在努力反对环境保护和应对气候变化的机制。我们特别关注第 364/2019 号法案草案（参考文献 ²），该法案将取消对全国 4800 万公顷原生植被的保护，使巴西非森林植被受到攻击³。如果获得批准，该法案将允许在这些地区移除植被;然后，这些区域可以用于其他活动，例如农业——这被用作批准该法案的理由。

巴西众议院于 2024 年 3 月提出并批准了该法案，该法案已提交给联邦参议院³。如果在那里获得批准，它只需要总统批准。该法案的第一个版本提议只允许在大西洋雨林中移除非森林植被，包括天然草原。但现在该法案适用于所有巴西生物群落。卢拉总统于 2023 年当选后，人们预计政府将对环境保护采取新的态度——主要是通过避免森林砍伐和实施减缓气候变化。然而，这项法案和其他环境挫折目前正在进行中，并且有真正的机会获得批准⁴.尽管科学家们已经警告了该法案的迫在眉睫的影响^3,5，但在这里我们展示了它如何在空间上影响巴西生物群落，并结合气候危机中的后果进行背景分析。