BRASILIA (Reuters) – the Senate of Brazil approved on Tuesday a historic reform to the law of land in the country, infuriating environmentalists who contend could lead to a new olea of deforestation in the Amazon region.
The new forestry code reduces the requirements for amount of forest cover which farmers must retain their properties, a change that agricultural producers say is necessary to put an end to years of uncertainty legal.
The Senate approved the basic text of the draft law on the night of Tuesday, leaving dozens of amendments for subsequent votes.
The Government said that fears of environmentalists are mostly unfounded and that a strict application of the new rules will result in the restoration of 24 million hectares of forest, the equivalent in size to the United Kingdom.
The discussion on the changes to the law, initially proposed a decade ago, has faced defenders of the environment are opposed to what they consider as an amnesty for crimes against nature by the powerful agricultural sector, which holds for its part that Brazil need more space to grow food as exports increase.
Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee, sugar, meat and orange juice, and a major producer of soybeans and corn. Expansion of land for raising cattle and planting soybeans has been the main engine of the destruction of the largest rainforest in the world in the last few years
Is now expected that the draft law will be adopted by the House of the Congress and that it is sent to the President Dilma Rousseff, who possibly signed and will become it law despite calls from environmentalists groups so go the initiative.
Rousseff promised during his election campaign last year that would not allow deforestation to increase. Sign the draft law would put at risk the international image of his Government before the environmental Summit “Rio + 20” to be held in June in Rio de Janeiro.
But she can point to several elements of the new law says the Government guarantee that there will be an amnesty to illegal deforestation or an increase in the destruction
Under the new code, thousands of farmers in the country that have eliminated forest cover on their properties far beyond the limits of the previous laws must join a plan up to 20 years to replace the destroyed vegetation.
(Additional report written by Peter Murphy;) (Published in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)
