From Right And Left, Attacks Intensify Against Brazilian Forestry Code - Mongabay

[hatrack]

“Farms Here, Forests There!” It’s a catchphrase that was recently rolled out by Avoided Deforestation Partners (ADP) to drum up support for carbon payments that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in the now-sidelined American Power Act. We can help to stop deforestation in the Amazon, the campaign argued, while bettering the situation for farmers here in the US.

That same sloganeering recently found its way to Brazil, where people like Communist Party federal deputy Aldo Rebelo picked it up. For Rebelo and his allies, however, “Farms Here, Forests There” has an altogether different meaning: to them, the phrase means “rainforest conservation at the expense of Brazilian farmers.”

In fact, Rebelo and his allies in the ruralista bloc are determined to weaken the Código Florestal, Brazil’s environmentally progressive Forest Code. Ironically, Rebelo and his supporters have used ADP’s pro-conservation slogan to whip up support for their anti-conservation campaign. And their efforts have paid off: By recasting their attack on the Forest Code as a nationalist response to unfair international pressures for conservation in Brazil, the opponents of the Forest Code have been winning the public relations war. In July, they managed to push a far-reaching reform proposal through the Special Committee on the Forest Code in the Chamber of Deputies.

Forest Code Under FirePassage of the amendment caused an uproar among both environmentalists and scientists in Brazil. First passed in 1934, Brazil’s Forest Code has been strengthened in recent years and is considered one of the world’s most progressive forest policies. Supporters of the Forest Code say it has played a major role in the rapid deceleration of deforestation rates in the Amazon over the last decade. In a letter in the July 16 issue of Science, six Brazilian scientists wrote that the new rules “will benefit sectors that depend on expanding frontiers by clear-cutting forests and savannas and will reduce mandatory restoration of native vegetation illegally cleared since 1965.”

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0922-ecosystem_marketplace_forest_cost.html

[xchrom]

1. they'll always try to find a way under the wire. too bad

cause it will ruin their country -- and make life harder for countless others.