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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Environmentalists Welcome Brazilian Amazon Reserve Package

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04/02/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Brazil is again putting forth changes to its forestry code. In late

1999 a severely flawed proposal was defeated when environmentalists

mobilized. The proposal at that time would have allowed for

exploitation of forests in permanently protected areas, conversion of

native forests into agricultural land without a license, and reduced

requirements for maintenance of legal reserves of native forests when

land was developed. The last item was particularly worrisome, and

appears to have been overturned and actually strengthened as the new

proposal requires that landowners maintain 80 percent of Amazon

rainforest holdings rather than the previous 50 percent (but reduces

requirements for savannas. There are still unanswered questions about

the bill as this item is short on details. One result of the 50

percent rule has been severe fragmentation of forests where

development is occurring, as small patches are preserved at the

expense of large expanses of intact rainforest. The 80 percent rule

would reduce but not eliminate fragmentation and resultant

ecologically deleterious edge effects.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Environmentalists Welcome Brazilian Amazon Reserve Package

Source: Associated Press

Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint

Date: March 31, 2000

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Environmentalists have expressed

guarded support for proposed changes to Brazil's forestry code that

would leave a key protection for the Amazon rainforest intact but

reduce reserves in savanna areas.

The proposal approved this week by the National Council for the

Environment requires that landowners maintain 80 percent of Amazon

rainforest holdings, but reduced the amount of savanna area that must

be kept intact from 50 percent to 35 percent.

"The proposal as a whole is productive," Adriana Ramos, a spokeswoman

for the Socio-Environmental Institute, a non-governmental

organization, said Thursday

The forestry code, which was established by executive proclamation in

1996, had long been attacked by the powerful farm lobby in the

Brazilian Congress and many here feared they would succeed in blunting

the measure's protections.

The measure, which goes to Congress next week, accommodates both the

environmentalists' and the farmers' interests by ensuring

environmental protection while allowing for economic development, she

said.

Savannas are the only Brazilian ecosystem not specifically protected

by the constitution and many environmentalists fear that they have

been seriously neglected, leaving many species on the verge of

extinction.

Since 1978, Brazil's Amazon has shrunk by more than 205,000 square

miles -- more than 10 percent of its original size _ threatening a

region rich in animal and plant species, environmentalists said. Some

scientists believe the destruction of the world's largest wilderness

could also accelerate global warming.

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