Federal deputy Zezinho Barbary (PP-AC) went to the stand in June to protest against the closure, imposed by court decision, of a road in the Amazon rainforest between the municipalities of Cruzeiro do Sul (AC) and Porto Walter (AC).
In his speech, he did not mention that the work on the road in the interior of the state of Acre was carried out by his administration, which carried out illegal deforestation with machines purchased through parliamentary amendments, when he was mayor of Porto Walter.
He also did not tell his colleagues in the Legislative House that the works led to the road passing through his family’s rural property and subsequently invading demarcated indigenous land. Not even that now, as a congressman, he allocated resources from his quota of amendments to regularize the road he opened in violation of environmental law and benefiting his family.
Barbary said in an interview with Sheet who “would do it all over again” and described the requirements of environmental law as “bureaucracy”. He also stated that his conduct sought to respond to the outcry of the local population and bring the city out of isolation. He denies having performed any act for his own benefit.
In the northern region of the country, small and medium-sized roads are called branch roads, and the road created by the congressman when head of the municipal Executive came to be known by his surname.
Since its beginning in 2015, the works on the Barbary branch have been marked by the Amazon rainforest. In August of that year, inspectors from Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Renewable Natural Resources) found that the city hall had opened 12.4 km of the road with environmental degradation.
The then mayor followed the inspection, and, according to the inspection document, “the defendant’s justification [Zezinho Barbary] was to connect, through this branch, the municipality of Porto Walter with the communities of Escuro, Vista Alegre and Foz do Mirim, where they would also benefit from the Luz Para Todos Program”.
During his terms at Porto Walter City Hall, from 2013 to 2020, Barbary received heavy machinery financed mainly by parliamentary amendments from then federal deputy Flaviano Melo (MDB), who was also governor of Acre and died in 2024.
“When I took over in 2013, the City Hall had only one machine, and today after eight years of our management, I am leaving more than 40 vehicles of different models so that the new manager can improve the lives of rural producers by opening branches, building tanks and dams. We have complete machinery”, said the politician at the end of his term in 2020, according to a post on the city hall’s social network.
In an interview with Sheet last Wednesday (8), Barbary stated that three machines purchased with an amendment worth R$ 1.1 million from Flaviano Melo were essential for the opening of the first 27 km of the branch: a tracked tractor, a backhoe and a loader.
Also according to Ibama inspection documents in 2015, the illegally deforested bed passed through a rubber plantation owned by a cousin of the deputy.
At the time, the city hall was fined R$35,000 and had the works and a bulldozer embargoed, but even so, in the following years it continued to move forward with the project.
According to residents of Porto Walter interviewed by the report, the then mayor violated the embargoes imposed on the section and the machine, which he nicknamed “José Dirceu” (former minister of Lula (PT) convicted in the Mensalão and Lava Jato).
In the interview with the newspaper, Barbary said that he associated Dirceu with the tractor embargoed by Ibama because he wanted to put the machine into operation even with restrictions from the environmental agency. According to him, the PT member was an example of a person who worked even when he was in prison, remembering his arrest in the Petrobras corruption case.
In 2019, the branch route invaded the Jaminawa do Igarapé Preto indigenous land, according to a report made to the Federal Public Ministry by Esmeralda Silva Moreira, 88, the chief of one of the affected villages.
Esmeralda received the report from Sheet in his home and spoke about the social and environmental damage caused by the works, especially in small and medium-sized water beds, known in the region as igarapés.
“The branch line caused a lot of concern for us. They covered the streams, they covered the lakes, the stream dried up much more than it was. The fathers of the family went to the lake, caught the fish to bring food to their children, that’s the end of it. They covered everything”, said the chief.
The accusation caused the Federal Public Ministry, through its Attorney’s Office in Acre, to open an investigation and request information from the bodies involved.
In March 2021, the state agency Imac (Acre Environmental Institute) confirmed that the project passed within indigenous land.
However, around four months later, the same Imac granted an environmental license for the deforestation of 251 hectares to open the branch, with a length of 83.7 km. The authorization considered a route that passed next to the limit of indigenous land, according to a route sent by the state highway agency, Deracre.
In August 2022, Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples) informed the Prosecutor’s Office that it had received a new complaint from the Jaminawa people and that the state press reported that the Government of Acre was carrying out works on the branch.
Based on these facts, still in 2022, the Public Ministry filed a public civil action with the Federal Court requesting the granting of an injunction to block the road.
In the first instance, the measure was rejected, but the Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the TRF-1 (Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region) and obtained a decision to close the road in December 2023.
Barriers and signs were then placed in the region informing about the court decision. From then on, the indigenous Jaminawa people began to suffer threats.
“I have been threatened with death several times. After I took over as general representative of the territory, people kept threatening me, saying that I was to blame for the branch not working”, reports the general chief of the Jaminawa of Igarapé Preto, professor José Francisco da Silva Alves, 47.
During the process, the Prosecutor’s Office presented to the Court an audio, which was leaked from a group of Barbary’s allies, in which he suggests hiring indigenous people to work on the works, but asks that his name not be associated with the strategy.
“I think it would be interesting for someone to talk to them [indígenas]so when the branch arrives in their land, to gather around six or ten Indians, so we can pay them. To give them a couple of days a day, to involve them in the extension”, said Barbary in the audio.
“Then someone among our people discreetly takes photos of the Indians working on the branch. Then someone negotiates with them there, they just can’t involve my name, okay? But then you can even delete the group’s audio”, he added.
The first instance civil action ruling came in 2024, ruling in favor of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and ordering licensing of the work and payment of compensation to the indigenous people in the amount of R$1 million.
The last step of the case in court was the presentation of an agreement by the Government of Acre in 2025 to close the case in the first instance, by which the state administration committed to legalizing the work and compensating the indigenous community in R$500,000.
Last February, Barbary announced on his social network the allocation of an amendment of R$200,000 for one of the stages of regularization of the branch line that he started by illegally cutting down the forest. The Government of Acre confirmed receipt of the amount for the remedial measure.
In the interview with SheetBarbary stated that in addition to the amount already sent to state management, he will also allocate an amendment of R$ 1.5 million for the preparation of other studies required for the legalization of the work.
