Scientist warns Brazilian government about new law

At a time when some media are linking the recent increase in Brazilian Amazon deforestation to landowners who are expecting full amnesty from the reformed Forest Law, a section of Brazil's scientific establishment has spoken out in defence of rainforest conservation. Speaking to the online environmental magazine, Mongabay.com, Antonio Donato Nobre, of the Amazon Research Institute and Brazil's National Space Research Institute, claims that: "throughout the development of the said revisions, Congress has neither invited nor commissioned a coordinated and serious contribution from the scientific community."

Brazil's contentious forest code is pitting agribuisness against environmentalists. Although, historically, the forest code required private landowners to maintain a proportion of natural forest cover on their land, the law was often ignored. The new code, however, argues that it needs to be relaxed so that Brazil can continue breakneck agroindustrial growth. These land-owning lobby behind the new code suggest that since the code is already so widely flouted, a large section of Brazil's economy is effectively "illegal", a reality which already undermines governance.

On the other side, environmentalists argue that the new relaxed code, with it's amnesty for past deforestation of areas up to 400 ha-would undermine recent progress on reducing deforestation in the world's biggest forest and make it difficult for Brazil to meet its international climate commitments.

"The scientific analysis supports the notion that active conservation of natural areas within farms makes complete agronomic, economic and ecological sense," Nobre told mongabay.com.

"With proper application of modern technological tools, the new forest code could become a source of stimulus for increased, responsible and sustainable agricultural output, while at the same time allowing for the ecological and economic rehabilitation of large areas of degraded lands all around Brazil," he said. "It will be completely inexcusable if all of that illuminating and liberating knowledge and technology is put aside by an old-fashioned political and ideological dispute." 

Source: www.mongabay.com

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