A leading Brazilian lawyer yesterday won a top prize for his environmental efforts aimed at protecting that country’s dwindling rain forests.

The International Bar Association and the Instituto Innovare awarded leading state prosecutor Daniel César Azeredo Avelino with its 2012 prize for ‘Justice and sustainability’.

Incentives

He was tipped for the award for a ‘green municipalities’ project that Mr Avelino unveiled at the Rio+20 Earth Summit. The scheme sets out to stop all deforestation in Brazil’s northern state of Para within eight years, reports Global Legal Post.

According to the IBA, that plan is to bring forward a series of incentive agreements between Brazil’s federal public prosecutor’s office, state municipalities, banks and rural producers, which facilitate access to credit and tax benefits to programmes that reduce deforestation for livestock and stimulate sustainable agriculture practices.

Strict enforcement

The association maintains that since Mr Avelino’s scheme kicked off three years ago, more than 50,000 landholdings and 90 state municipalities have registered. The projects are monitored and enforced by the prosecutor’s office, and, according to Brazilian officials, the scheme has already reduced deforestation in the region by 40 per cent.

The co-chairwoman of the IBA’s human rights institute, leading British lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, commented on the scheme: ‘We strongly believe that the legal profession has an obligation to join the fight against environmental damage and climate change and this innovative project is an example to us all.’