SAO PAULO—After being postponed three times in recent weeks, then a final, grueling overnight debate, Brazil’s House of Representatives voted this week to approve the country’s hotly contested new Forest Code.
Tuesdays’ vote ended with 410 votes in favor, 63 against, and one abstention. The bill will now go to the Federal Senate, then return for another round of votes in the House before being sent for approval by President Dilma Rousseff.
Most farmers consider the bill well balanced, but environmentalists see it as a regression for forest conservation efforts in favor of big farming interests, according to a report by the House of Representatives.
Despite the best efforts of opponents, the bill passed with its most controversial elements still included.
The new Forest Code, written and spearheaded by Communist Party deputy Aldo Rebelo, proposes modifying the original Code that has been held up as a as a model of sustainable management.
The current code, sanctioned in 1965, stipulates that farms and settlements must conserve 80 percent of any Amazon forest on their land as legal reserves (LRs), and use it for sustainable timber management, but they cannot destroy it. In the Cerrado (savanna ecoregion), 35 percent must be LRs; the reserve is 20 percent in the rest of the country.
The new bill exempts small landowners—with parcels under 247 acres—of this requirement. It offers amnesty to anyone who deforested illegally until July 22, 2008, and makes no provision for the restoration of ecological damage on small properties. It also slices in half, down to 50 feet, the amount of land that must be left untouched along rivers and streams, known as Permanent Preservation Areas (PPA).
Bumpy Ride to Continue
The government does not agree with Amendment 164, which concedes powers to the states to authorize the regularizing of deforested areas. It intends to alter this part of Aldo Rebelo’s text.
Government leader Cándido Vaccarezza, from the Party of Workers (PT) said, “The amendment opens the gap to consolidate all the deforested areas in an irregular manner, which translates to amnesty for deforesters,” according to a report from the Deputy Chamber.
Before the vote, Vaccarezza warned that president Dilma would veto the bill if the Federal Senate did not change the amendment.
“The president thinks this amendment is a shame for Brazil, and she asked me to say so to the members of the House,” said Vaccarezza in a declaration to the House.
Farmers Pleased With Outcome
According to news website JusBrasil, last week the coordinator for the Agricultural Parliamentary Front (FPA), Deputy Moreira Mendes of the People’s Socialist Party, pressured the government, along with farmers, to pass the bill this week.
After the vote, the National Confederation of Agriculture celebrated the outcome. “It was a victory for producers, because we could not give up more areas of production which we have already given away,” Senator Katia Abreu told the BBC.
Senator Abreu also said that the country cannot accept the current situation due to the land’s crucial role in the fight against world hunger, and pointed out that the people have already given enough. “Brazil is the only country in the world which has renounced fertile grounds in order to preserve the environment,” said Abreu in a letter published in the O Globo newspaper.
Read More...Scientific Community Ignored
Scientific Community Ignored
The scientific community says it was ignored in drafting revisions to the Forest Code.
According to a public statement by Superior School of Agriculture “Luis Queiroz” (ESALQ), the vote was given the importance of a “final hour urgent matter,” and did not allow space and time to understand all of its dimensions and consequences. In the case of the legal definitions of the PPAs, this could translate into incalculable damage to the sustainability of a Brazil’s agricultural sector, which is recognized around the world as one of the most complete and versatile.
Tomás Lewinsohn, professor of Ecology from the Unicamp in Brazil and president of the Association of Environmental and Preservation Sciences, said, “The few scientists that were actually listened to were pre-selected according to what they were to say.” He called the crisis of food production alleged by Congress in order to justify making the PPAs more flexible is “scarcely realistic.”
Lewinsohn also points out in a text published by the Estadao Newspaper that Brazil has broad scope to rearrange its land for herding if it uses technologies to increase the efficiency of cattle raising. “With this, it is feasible to increase Brazilian production without advancing against the natural landscapes that are left in the rural properties,” he wrote.
The scientific community has asked for another two years at most to a complete scientific analysis of the Forest Code to promote finding agreement among all of society, not just among some segments of the population or certain interests, according a press release by the FAPESP news Agency.
Environmentalists’ Appeals Dismissed
The Green Party, the Socialist Party, and part of the Party of Workers objected to voting on the Forest Code and said they needed more time for discussion. Several times their requests for postponement were denied.
Alfredo Sirki, Green Party deputy, said it would have been possible to create a bill that simultaneously protects the forests and ecosystems and at the same time covers the concerns of the agriculture sector.
However, he said, the current bill does not signify any advancement, because, for example, it fails to provide economic incentives for reforestation. According to Sirkis, over the next 20 years there will be $80 million in the international market for carbon credits meant for reforestation, with the purpose of absorbing the carbon emissions of countries that fail to reduce carbon emissions.
“These environmental services are something that matters to small producers, but that information was withheld from them,” said Sirkis in a statement released by the Chamber of Deputies.
Eight ex-environment ministers met with President Dilma on Tuesday shortly before the vote, asking her to prevent it from taking place.
“The president once again reiterated her commitment to not allow a reversal in the Brazilian environmental legislation,” said the ex-environment minister, Marina Silva, in a statement on Greenpeace Brazil’s website.
