Source: Inter Press Service
The adoption of a new Forest Code in Brazil could threaten efforts to curb Amazon deforestation, which was reduced 70 percent between 2004 and 2010.
The proposal to amend the current Forest Code, presented in the Chamber of Deputies by Communist Party of Brazil representative Aldo Rebelo, was to be put to a vote on May 11. After hours of heated debate, the vote was postponed until Monday May 16. But on Monday the entire process was once again put off. "The proposal opens up a lot of gaps," Tasso Azevedo, a forestry engineer and Ministry of Environment consultant on forests and climate, told Tierramérica. In addition to reducing the so-called permanent preservation areas that must be reforested if cleared, it establishes an amnesty for landholders who have illegally cleared forests on their properties. Under the current legislation, they are subject to fines. "This makes it seem as if the law wasn’t made to be obeyed," said Azevedo.
If this part of the proposal is approved, reforestation would no longer be required on up to 15 million hectares of land, according to the Ministry of Environment. Under the current Brazilian Forest Code (Law 4771 of 1965), permanent preservation areas are areas that "play a role in preserving water resources, landscape, geological stability, biodiversity, the gene flow of flora and fauna, protecting the soil and ensuring the well-being of human populations."
These areas include the banks and sources of rivers and the tops and slopes of hills, where logging is strictly prohibited. Legal reserves are areas within private landholdings deemed by the law to be "vital for the sustainable use of natural resources, conservation and rehabilitation of ecological processes and biodiversity, and the protection of native flora and fauna."
In the Amazon rainforest region, 80 percent of the forested area on privately owned farmland must be set aside as a legal reserve, and therefore cannot be cleared. For landholdings located in the Cerrado tropical savanna region within what is known as the "Amazônia Legal" (which covers nine of Brazil's 26 states), 35 percent of forested land must be preserved, while 20 percent must be set aside as legal reserves in the rest of the country.
But there is no special protection for the rest of the Cerrado, an ecoregion spanning two million kilometers in central Brazil, where the rate of deforestation is twice that of the Amazon. The Forest Code currently prohibits the clearing of forests on a strip of between 30 and 500 meters along the banks of rivers. Under the proposed changes, that requirement would be reduced to a 15-meter-wide strip. The amendments also open up the possibility of forgiving deforestation fines for landowners who register with the Environmental Regularisation Program, essentially an amnesty program, as well as owners of landholdings of 400 hectares or less, who would not be required to reforest cleared areas.
"The new Forest Code is an umbrella full of holes," said Azevedo, adding that the bill tabled by Rebelo "is a different bill from the one that had been agreed upon. With a few small changes in wording, for example, mangroves were removed from the protected areas."
The head of the ruling Workers Party bloc in the Chamber of Deputies, Cândido Vaccarezza, maintained that there would be no flexibility with regard to planting crops in permanent protection areas, and that any exceptions, under the criteria of public utility, social need and reduced environmental impact, would be regulated by decree.