Brazil's greens win forest showdown.

• Author: Ruppert, David
• Position: Brief Article

Rallying record public and political support, Brazilian environmentalists in May halted legislation that would have paved the way for the country's large land owners to redouble their efforts to clear forests and grasslands to make way for plantations. The firestorm of public protest against the measure built up and eventually "went out of our hands," said Adriana Ramos, coordinator of the NGO Working Group on Forests, a coalition of approximately 20 global and regional environmental groups.

The legislation, drafted by Brazil's Department of Agriculture and the National Farmers Coalition (CNA), which represents approximately 5 million farmers and ranchers, would have allowed clearing of rainforest to increase from 20 to 50 percent on privately owned land in the Amazon. Already fragmented areas, such as the Atlantic rainforest, would be decimated under such regulations.

The CNA is a powerful voice in Brazil, where 3 percent (5.1 million) of the country's 170 million people own approximately two-thirds of the land, according to recent government estimates. The farmers' coalition wants to expand large-scale agriculture near the Amazon River, which is increasingly recognized as a fast and cheap artery for the transportation of crops, particularly soybeans (see "Where Have All the Farmers Gone?" page 12).

The CNA had hoped that a rewrite of the forestry law would pass in December 1999, but...