National System of Nature Conservation Units

The National System of Nature Conservation Units (Portuguese: Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação da Natureza), abbreviated SNUC, is a set of regulations and official procedures that enable the federal, state and municipal government departments, as well as private initiative, to create, implement and manage Conservation Units (UC) in order to organize nature preservation in Brazil.

A second stage of the plan, drawn up by the IBDF, was sanctioned by the government in 1982 and published under its current name and acronyms - the National System of Nature Conservation Units (SNUC).

In July 1988, the Pro-Nature Foundation - FUNATRA (Portuguese: Fundação Pró-Natureza), with resources initially provided by the Special Secretariat for the Environment - SEMA (Secretaria Especial do Meio Ambiente) and the IBDF, gathered a group of specialists to review and update the definitions of the categories of conservation units and to develop a draft law.

[7] Under current Brazilian legislation, Conservation Units are created by presidential or state decree after an evaluation of their ecological importance and can only be altered or reduced through bills.

However, in 2012, the House of Representatives and the Senate approved, and President Dilma Rousseff sanctioned and transformed into federal law, a Provisional Measure that redefined the boundaries of seven Conservation Units in the Amazon.