President could veto Amazon forest code as environmentalists protest
Copyright 2001 Associated Press
September 5, 2001
By ADALID CABRERA LEMUZ; Associated Press Writer
BRASILIA, Brazil - Facing protests by environmentalists, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is considering vetoing forestry reforms that threaten to speed the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, a government official said Wednesday.
Artur Virgilio, government leader in the Chamber of Deputies, told The Associated Press that Cardoso was urging lawmakers in his center-right coalition to close ranks and vote down reforms to Brazil's forestry code unless they are first submitted to a full national debate.
"The president is even willing to veto this project, if ... large landowners and lumber and mining companies press for the approval of this proposed Forestry Code," Virgilio said. Congress is preparing to vote on the bill that would drastically roll back requirements that property owners in the Amazon preserve 80 percent of the forested areas and 35 percent of their savannas largely intact.
The new law would reduce the preservation of Amazonian forests to 50 percent, and savannas to 17.5 percent of the land.
The bill is supported by Brazil's powerful farm lobby, which argues that the current protections hinder economic development.
Environmentalists, however, argue that the restrictions are essential to protect the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness, which is disappearing at a rate of about 17,000 square kilometers (6,800 square miles) a year.
Protestors rallied in front of Congress for a second day Wednesday and two environmentalists entered the building and chained themselves to tables in a room where a cross-party Congressional committee was discussing the reform, Globo News television reported.
Once the joint committee passes the reform, which is to substitute the current forest code dating from 1965, it still must be approved in Congress.
Environment Minister Jose Sarney criticized the new code as "a door to destruction of the Amazon forest."
"It opens the possibility of an irrational exploitation of natural ressources without reforesting regulations," he said.
According to environmentalists' studies, 50 million cubic meters (yards) of Amazon lumber are felled illegally each year.
The reform would reduce protected areas from 80 percent of the forest to 20 percent and from 35 percent of savannas to 20 percent, Sarney said.
The Amazon region covers 4.9 million square kilometers (2 million square miles), or 60 percent of Brazilian territory. It crosses Brazil's borders to enter Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Suriname, Guayana and French Guayana.