Controversial Brazilian Forest Bill Passes House

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

Farmers and agro business enterprises have argued that vote was an urgent matter because of food shortages and the lack of financial solvency of small producers. They argue that they need more land to farm and raise livestock and that the old code was too restrictive.

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.

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