Brazil climate target "threatened" 11/23/2010
Brazil’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be jeopardized by current proposals in Congress to relax the country’s forest protection laws, environmental groups say. The lower house of deputies may vote shortly on changes to the 45-year old Forest Code, which stipulates the areas of private property required to be kept in native vegetation. The supporters of the revised code are pressing for it to be passed before newly-elected members of Congress take their seats in the new year. However, Brazil’s environment minister called today for the vote to be delayed. The Climate Observatory, a coalition of 35 NGOs including WWF-Brazil, Friends of the Earth and Conservation International, claims that some seven billion tonnes of carbon locked up in vegetation could be released as a result of the changes. According to preliminary data from a study released in Brasilia on Tuesday, this would represent emissions of more than 25 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 13 times Brazil’s emissions for 2007. The study author André Ferretti said, “If the text is approved, Brazil’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [by between 36.1% and 38.9% below projected 2020 levels] would be turned to dust – apart from countless impacts on biodiversity.” The Forest Code was introduced in 1965 as part of a policy to protect Brazil’s forestry resources and prevent erosion. It stipulates a proportion of a private land holding known as the Legal Reserve, that needs to be kept free from production. The proportion is 80% in the Amazon, 35% in the area of transition between the Amazon and the Cerrado savanna, and 20% in the remainder of the country. In addition, cultivation is prohibited on parts of a property along riverbanks, on steep slopes, the tops of hills and close to springs, known as Areas of Permanent Preservation. The laws have been widely flouted, and from next June, rules will come into force that would force landowners to restore forests on areas illegally cleared under the Code, or face large fines. This has prompted the attempts by the strong rural lobby in Brazil’s Congress to relax the code, which they say makes agricultural production unviable in many regions if strictly applied. According to the Climate Observatory study, the biggest impact of the proposed changes would be the exemption of smaller properties (up to about 400 hectares) from the requirement to maintain the Legal Reserve. It says this would leave nearly 70 million hectares of forest, an area larger than Afghanistan, without legal protection. An additional 1.8 million hectares of forest would be threatened by the proposal to halve the current buffer of 30 metres required to be left along the banks of rivers up to 5 metres wide. In comments unconnected with the study, the Brazilian environment minister Izabella Teixeira said debate on the proposed changes should be widened before they are put to the vote. Reported by the government news agency Agência Brasil, Ms Teixeira said that as currently drafted, the changes could attract a presidential veto. “We are in favour of modernising the Forest Code, but we need to improve the debate, taking regional differences into account.” Ms Teixeira said there was a “political elite” associated with agro-industry that did not want the debate on the proposal to be widened, but she also criticised what she called extremism among environmentalists that prejudiced debate on the issue. Later, the chairman of the agricultural grouping in Congress, deputy Moreira Mendes from the Amazonian state of Rondônia, attacked the minister's intervention and said he would still be pressing for the reforms to be voted on before the New Year. NB. A version of this article is published at www.pointcarbon.com CommentsLeave a Reply | Tim Hirsch
Observer of the international environmental scene, with a focus on Brazil. ArchivesApril 2011 Categories |
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