Developers win first round in Brazil Amazon battle
Date: 07-Sep-01
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Marco Sibaja
At a lively session disrupted by banner-waving activists, the commission voted 13-2 in favor of the bill. It calls for local environmental and land-use studies and proposes allowing current limits on logging on private land in the Amazon to be relaxed if the studies support the change.
Its opponents, however, vowed the bill would not gain approval on the floor of both chambers of Congress, required for it to become law. Even if approved, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has said he would veto it.
The bill was drawn up by Moacir Micheletto, a lawmaker from the southern state of Parana who is a supporter of the farming industry. It advocates the introduction of "zoning" studies of Amazon forest land to determine how much forest can be cut down in the future.
Brazil is home to most of the Amazon, which is larger than all of western Europe combined and shelters up to 50 percent of the world's animal and plant species.
Micheletto's bill seeks to replace a so-called provisional measure, dating back to 1998, that requires 80 percent of all private property in the Amazon to be set aside for protection.
"With the current provisional measure, 20 million Brazilians are unable to produce and take their goods to market," said lawmaker Marcio Bittar, defending the bill.
The new bill retains the 80 percent limit but seeks to open the way to reduce that percentage if local studies in the Amazon area recommend such changes.
Environmentalists favor the existing measure and want it to be made permanent. The zoning studies, they fear, could be carried out by local governments that do not have the necessary technical expertise to ensure the forest is not threatened.
To make their case, two Greenpeace activists handcuffed themselves to an indoor rail at the commission's meeting this weekozz Wednesdayozz.
