Bill In Brazilian Parliament Would Drastically Reduce Forest Protection - Nature
The sound of chainsaws in the Amazon rainforest has faded in recent years as deforestation has slowed, last year dropping to less than one-third of its long-term average. But last week, the lower house of Brazil’s National Congress passed a bill that observers say could drastically reduce forest protection.
An organized coalition of rural agricultural interests prevailed in vote after vote during debates, approving amendments that would, for example, scale back forest protections along rivers and hills, give state and local governments more authority over forests, and relieve landholders of the responsibility of reforesting illegally cleared land. The bill would also eliminate a requirement that landowners seeking agricultural loans from the government register their land, document any illegal clearance and submit a plan to come into compliance if they have cleared forests illegally.
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The legislation has been working its way through the National Congress since 2010, motivated by a rural backlash against the crackdown on deforestation. The Brazilian Confederation for Agriculture and Livestock, one of the main business groups supporting the bill, argues that the forest code has become too burdensome. Pointing out that around 28% of the country’s 851 million hectares is dedicated to agriculture whereas 61% is forest, the organization says that by approving the law, Brazil’s Congress has chosen “the path of sustainable agricultural production”. The bill’s fate now rests with Rousseff, whom environmentalists have never fully trusted despite her pledges to maintain the policies of her predecessor, including a commitment to an 80% reduction in the average deforestation rate by 2020. Although Rousseff is predicted to sign the bill, many expect her to use her veto powers to remove its most radical provisions, including one that would grant amnesty to people who violated the forest code before July 2008. Rousseff will have 15 days to make her decision once the legislation reaches her desk.
Last December, Brazil’s Senate passed a more moderate version of the bill, also opposed by environmentalists, and some senators are now making moves to try to vote again on a fall-back version that Rousseff could accept while rejecting the House bill in its entirety. Some speculate that the administration tacitly allowed the ruralistasto advance their agenda in the lower house while planning to veto extreme provisions that were not included in the Senate version, says Paulo Moutinho, an ecologist who heads the Amazon Environmental Research Institute in Brasilia. “The bill is so bad now that the president can use her veto and say, ‘Look, I’m doing the right thing’,” he adds.
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http://www.nature.com/news/brazil-set-to-cut-forest-protection-1.10555