During his visit to COP30 in Belém (PA), last Tuesday (11), the Minister of Integration and Regional Development (MIDR), Waldez Góes (PDT-AP), said that it is necessary to “industrialize” when asked about the investigation of Sheet which showed that they have been delivered to the region since 2015.
Góes also defended the transfer of the Calha Norte program, a traditional military project that has existed for 40 years in the states of the Legal Amazon, from the Ministry of Defense to the department he commands, a change carried out in 2025.
The main distributors of heavy machinery in the Amazon region are exactly Calha Norte and the state-owned company (Companhia de Desenvolvimento dos Vales do São Francisco e do Parnaíba), linked to MIDR, which have had their historical purposes distorted in recent years to become the preferred pipelines of Brazilian congressmen. MIDR is third in the ranking of machine deliveries since 2015.
For Góes, the main environmental problem in the Amazon is the lack of basic sanitation.
Read the main excerpts from the interview with Sheet:
The Ministry of Integration and Regional Development became responsible this year for the Calha Norte program, which was a traditional military project in the Amazon. Is the ministry prepared to cover the program in this sensitive region for the country?
As the Ministry of Integration and Regional Development is responsible for territorial planning policy and border development, it has a direct relationship with what Calha Norte’s actions were mostly.
So, even though Calha Norte was linked to the Ministry of Defense, 90% of what it carried out in the states was related to regional development infrastructure.
It was a government decision, by President Lula, Minister Mucio [José Mucio Monteiro, ministro da Defesa]from my team, from Management, Minister Esther [Esther Dweck, ministra da Gestão e da Inovação em Serviços Públicos] participated. So, it was a collegiate of ministers who understood that the program’s identity was mainly related to Regional Development.
All contractual liabilities, especially because I did not receive a server, continue to be executed by the Ministry of Defense to terminate all contracts there. New contracts, [serão] everyone with us, including resources already allocated by parliamentarians.
Folha found that since 2015, less than 1% of the values of parliamentary amendments were allocated to actions, and in the same period the amendments subsidized the distribution of more than 1,600 heavy machines in the Legal Amazon region, mainly through the Calha Norte program and Codevasf. What is the ministry doing to ensure that these machines are not used for misuse and even contribute to the ?
I always say that, in general, people know little about government, private and social initiatives in the Amazon, of which there are many, and end up seeing illegal mining, illegal fishing and illegal deforestation very frequently, which also occur, but not in the majority.
The Amazon is full of good practices, also in relation to innovation in technology and equipment. Can you imagine the Amazon without research, without technology, without innovation? Are we going to spend another century being a supplier of raw materials for the industry in São Paulo or for the international industry?
So, we have to bridge these gaps. How does it break? We need to industrialize the Amazon. We need to innovate the Amazon. We need technology. So, that’s the logic.
Do you believe that the machinery distributed through the amendments today is necessary for this industrialization?
He is essential. In the past, under a logic of occupation of the Amazon or agrarian reform, they built subdivisions, covering hundreds of kilometers.
People who struggle to get students to school, who struggle to get energy there, internet? And then the bridge breaks, the mayor is unable to build the branch. So I’m looking at public policy. You equip the municipalities, equip society to improve living conditions in the Amazon.
There was a mayor who made a mistake, punish that mayor. There was an entity that made a mistake, punish that entity. Now, I cannot proceed from the logic that a mayor used a machine improperly to end public policy that never happened.
I’m from a state [Amapá] which has 96% of its vegetation cover preserved. I was governor four times. So, I was environmentally responsible. But was it just me? No, the others went too. The private sector is too. And so is the traditional population. It’s our culture. So, we have the right to have technology for these people to produce and for city halls to work with.
The newspaper also showed a situation in which they were used by the then mayor of the Acre municipality of Porto Walter to open a road whose works involved illegal deforestation and invasion of indigenous territory. How do you see this risk?
Disagreements with a mayor who carries out an improper practice come from here and from any state in Brazil. So, that’s why there are control bodies. There is the ministry that must control, there is the Public Ministry, the Court of Auditors, the Federal Public Ministry, there are even police bodies.
We cannot start from the logic of error to continue not implementing public policy on innovation in the Amazon, on introducing technologies in the Amazon.
It is not possible to demand from the Amazonian, who continues with the wheel, who continues with the axe, who continues with the machete, who continues with the sickle, that the numbers of Amazonian inequality change. And until he takes better care of the forest, because he takes care, when no one takes responsibility.
Parliamentary amendments are also taking a lot of resources to pave roads in the Amazon and environmental groups warn of the risk of roads becoming vectors of devastation in the region. Like mr. see this situation?
As far as I know, no work can be done without proper licensing. Licensing is done based on existing legal instruments and existing environmental legislation.
So if a road, a side road, an interstate or intercity road is paved, it was based on a project that was presented, legislation that was complied with.
And so, if that was done, I don’t see why we don’t have the same right as other regions of the country. Just because we are Amazon? The distances are gigantic. It’s very difficult. In fact, there isn’t even enough money to pave all the roads in the Amazon.
In your opinion, what is the biggest environmental problem in the Amazon region?
The biggest environmental problem in the Amazon is basic sanitation. Our basic sanitation indicators are challenging. And the cost of doing so, be it water, sewage treatment or solid waste, is very high.
So it is necessary for the national and international community to look at the Amazon when discussing the environmental issue, not only in relation to the river and the forest, but what basic sanitation, or the lack thereof, is capable of causing, both in the river and in the forest.
X-ray | Waldez Góes, 64
Minister of Integration and Regional Development, Antonio Waldez Góes da Silva is from Gurupá (PA). He was governor of the state of Amapá for four terms, from 2003 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2022. He began political life in 1989, when he joined the PDT. He is an agricultural technician trained at the Escola Agrotécnica Federal de Castanhal (PA) and a career public servant as a rural extension worker.
