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FOREST
CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Renewed
Drive to Reduce Amazon Protections
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08/28/01
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by Forests.org
Next
week the Brazilian Congress will hold a key vote that threatens
to
significantly reduce protections for Brazil's Amazon rainforest.
The
agricultural lobby seeks to reduce the amount of land that must
be
preserved when rainforests and other ecosystems undergo
development. Doing so is likely to spawn massive
increases in
deforestation
throughout much of the Brazilian Amazon.
This is
particularly
so given the government's planned massive "Advance
Brazil"
infrastructure construction program which threatens to open
up
large areas of frontier rainforests with new roads (see current
action
alert at http://forests.org/emailaction/brazil.htm). The
Brazilian
government has a responsibility to protect and sustainably
manage
the Amazon, which functions as a global ecosystem engine
driving
ecological cycles that make the Earth habitable. The World's
citizenry
has the responsibility to live within its means and reduce
or
eliminate their consumption of tropical timbers. The rich
governments
of the over-developed nations must channel a significant
portion
of their ill-gotten wealth towards mitigating the economic
costs
of not commercially developing the Amazon.
But first,
environmentalists
must beat back yet again the efforts to raze and
farm
the Amazon.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil Environmentalists Face New Battle on
Amazon
Source: Copyright 2001 Reuters
Date: August 28, 2001
Byline: Story by Marco Sibaja
BRASILIA
- Brazilian farmers and environmentalists are gearing up for
battle
again ahead of a key congressional vote that could ease the
limits
on how much forest can be cut down in the Amazon jungle.
A
special congressional commission will vote on Sept. 4 on a bill
environmentalists
fear could pave the way for accelerated destruction
of the
world's largest tropical forest.
The
dispute centers on a bill by Moacir Micheletto, a lawmaker from
the
agricultural lobby in Congress, which calls for the introduction
of a
"zoning" study of the Amazon to determine how much forest can be
cut
down in the future.
Most of
the Amazon, which is larger than all of Western Europe
combined,
is in Brazil and it is home to up to 50 percent of the
world's
animal and plant species.
If
approved on Sept. 4, and subsequently by Congress, Micheletto's
bill
would replace a so-called provisional measure by the government
that
requires 80 percent of all property in the Amazon to be set
aside
for protection.
A
spokesman for Micheletto said the bill maintains the 80 percent
limit
but added that it would open the way for a reduction if local
studies
in the Amazon area recommended such changes.
Environmentalists
favor the current provisional measure, which dates
back to
1998, and hope it will be made permanent.
They
worry that its provisional status leaves it in a "legislative
limbo"
that could allow Congress to change it or replace it with a
permanent
law at any time. Provisional measures renew themselves
automatically
every few months if they are not challenged by
Congress.
The
Sept. 4 vote on Micheletto's bill will be the second time in six
months
that the agricultural lobby in Congress has attempted to push
through
a new law. They failed in May and have changed the bill
slightly
since then.
Reduced
cohesion in the government's ruling coalition ahead of
presidential
elections next year could give the bill greater chances
this
time as lawmakers are more likely to vote without following
party
lines.
Assuero
Veronez, an environmental adviser to the National Agriculture
Confederation
- a group backing the bill, said just 25.6 percent of
the
Amazon is currently in private hands, while the rest is already
protected
by nature parks and Indian reserves.
CURRENT
LEVEL OF PROTECTION CRITICIZED
"We
are not against preserving the Amazon," Veronez said. "This
(protection)
is a right of Brazilian society, but we consider 80
percent
as an exaggerated level of protection."
Environmentalists
do not like it. They fear, above all, that the
zoning
studies envisioned by the bill could be carried out by local
governments
in the Amazon that do not have the technical know-how to
evaluate
what segments of the forests are threatened.
"In
practice, this implies the possibility of the complete
elimination
of the obligation of maintaining a legal reserve set
aside
in the Amazon," said Andre Lima, a lawyer from the Social
Environmental
Institute.
Environmentalists
warned that the bill could also lead to more damage
in
other threatened ecosystems in Brazil, such as the Mata Atlantic
coastal
forests, where it stipulates much smaller reserve
levels.
###RELAYED
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