The Brazilian government has announced a compromise proposal which it hopes will resolve the controversy over the country’s Forest Code, the law limiting clearance of native forests on private land.

NGOs have warned that reforms tabled by lawmakers sympathetic to the agricultural lobby would undermine Brazil’s climate policy by stimulating deforestation.

The environment minister Izabella Teixeira said the government had reached a consensual proposal that would refine the current system while avoiding environmental risks.

According to the environment ministry, the new proposal included the principle of allowing landowners to protect forest areas in other parts of the same biome, in compensation for converting more than the permitted proportion of the property itself.

Such compensation could occur in a different state so long as it was protecting a priority area for biodiversity conservation.

However, the govenment would not accept reforms that amounted to a blanket amnesty for landowners who had already deforested areas not permitted by the code, a key element of the original proposal promoted by the agrcultural lobby.

Teixeira said that if agreement could not be reached with the congressional leaders promoting the reform, the government’s proposals would be tabled in the form of amendments.

After the announcement, Brazilian media reported that talks had been held between leaders of the environmentalist and “ruralist” or pro-agriculture factions in Congress. Some progress was made the report said, but differences remained.

Friends of the Earth Brazil welcomed moved towards compromise on the issue.

“The points of difference can be easily resolved,” the group said in an editorial on its website. “It’s not necessary to have an unrestricted amnesty for those who deforested. Such an initiative would reward those who never obeyed the law, and would punish producers who act according to the law.”

The new legislation is expected to be voted in Congress in the first week of May.

NB A version of this article was published at www.pointcarbon.com