Brazil Fails Amazon Rainforest

Update: Brazil's President, Dilma Rudolph, signed into law the controversial revision of the country's {Forest Code} but vetoed some of the most controversial changes proposed by exploiters of the Amazon rainforest. She signed the law late Thursday while vetoing nine clauses. The revised code retains the provision for private forest landowners to maintain forest cover of 80%, a provision deemed critical by conservationists. However, the manner in which the 80% figure is calculated has been relaxed. Now, owners can count forest along rivers and hillsides, key to preventing disastrous erosion of thin soils by tropical rains as part of their required reserve. Previously these areas where preservation is mandatory was in addition to the 80% set aside. The revised Code also requires owners to replant areas in excess of the new limits, and provide ownership coordinates to a rural environmental registry. Brazil is increasingly employing satellite telemetry to keep watch on Amazon land use. Environmentalists see the revisions as too lenient; agricultural interests see them as unconstitutional. The agricultural caucus in congress has promised to challenge the law in court. Revising the Forest Code proved to be a controversial issue between the President who promised to enforce environmental regulations during her campaign for office and a Chamber of Deputies dominated by agribusiness interests.

{27.14.12}The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies voted to relax conservation restrictions of the nation's forest code over strong opposition from conservationists and indigenous peoples. Farmers supported the changes, arguing uncertainty undermined investment in agriculture that accounts for 5.8 percent of the nation's GDP. Conservationists say the {forest code} allowed deforestation to be slowed. The legislation reduces the amount of forest that must be preserved by farmers and provides an amnesty from fines for illegal clearing. Under the previous law landowners had to preserve as much as 80% of their land in the Amazon. The new provisions allow development closer to riverbanks and hilltops which are vulnerable to erosion when trees are removed. The bill now goes to President Dilma Rousseff who has fifteen days to sign it into law. She made pledges to uphold environmental protection during her election campaign, but is also seeking outside support for Brazil's economic development. Brazilian legal experts predict that the forest code's constitutionality will be eventually ruled upon by the Brazilian Supreme Court. There are no precedents for two aspects of the law, the social function of property clause in the consititution and the common use nature of Brazil's swampland. $4.8 billion in fines for acreage cleared illegally before 2008 will have to be forfeited if the measure becomes law, but even more significant is the loss of up to 190 million acres of forest which is the equivalent of adding 28 billion tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere.