There is one question that arose a few times here and that became a real debate: in what extent the banks, in time to adopt rural credits, are responsible for the devastation of environmental areas protected? It seems that an answer to that question came.

From July, the Brazilian Central Bank will implement a resolution that restrict bank lending to rural landowners who are not with the situation regularised with the regulatory body from the environmental area.

Controversy, but well seen by many experts, this is a tremendous step forward for a country like Brazil. And the goal is to try to reduce the deforestation of the Amazon, which in recent years has accelerated.

Banks, as we know, are institutions that often do not care about the impact that a particular work of infrastructure will have on a particular ecosystem, the same applies to rural credit, as in funding for huge plantings of soybeans. Many just want to borrow the money to be able to increase their profits. With the increasing concern about the sustainability, such institutions also have become liable for scholars and institutions such as Unep-FI (http://www.unepfi.org/), which is part of the UN.

The most interesting is that many banks already were preparing for a government measure in that direction and had already hired geologists, biologists and sociologists to create a kind of specific regulation for the matter. The need arose from the employment of such professionals to develop new criteria for loans in this new context.

The only problem that remains now is: all will be subject to the rules the same way? Do they all have responsibility socio environmental, after all, what would prevent any entrepreneur who was denied a loan, to use another bank and get what he wanted?

In conclusion, the debate continues, because it will be necessary to create sectoral policies that coordinate the actions of financial institutions so that all act the same way.