Another Brazil Forest Plan - Area 2X Size Of Portugal Gone In 10 Years

[hatrack]

In one decade an area of forest twice the size of Portugal has been destroyed in the Amazon, the planet's most bio-diverse forest, so a Brazilian plan to better protect the area through sustainable forestry, certainly sounds positive. But the plan - which is due to go to Brazilian Congress in two weeks - is proving highly controversial.

The proposed law, first discussed in 2002 under Brazil's rightwing former president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, would grant access to public land for sustainable use, initially for 30 years. Licences would be allocated under a system of competitive bids and would be open only to Brazilian firms. Licence-holders would pay an annual fee calculated on what they extract, such as wood or resins, from their plot.

But information on how much money the government will make from the licences is hard to come by. The topic gained particular notoriety after Brazil's O Globo newspaper described it as "a plan to privatise the Amazon", saying the government wanted to sell land to private enterprises, including non-Brazilians.

EDIT

One of the main hurdles to regulation is land ownership. "There has been no legal framework permitting the use of public land, let alone encouraging sustainable use forest use," explained Brazil's Friends of the Earth director, Roberto Smeraldi. This has discouraged serious law-abiding businesses interested in invested, he added. And mapping such land remains a challenge. Paulo Barreto, a researcher with Imazon, which promotes sustainable development in the Amazon, explained that a high number of land title documents are illegal or false, and the government lacks ownership proof."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,12462,1317516,00.html