Environmentalists and farm lobby argue about who were the winners and losers in Dilma’s Codigo Florestal

On Friday, May 25, fifteen days after she officially received the Land Use Law (“Código Florestal”) that was approved by the Chamber of Deputies at the end of April, president Dilma Rousseff decided to veto 12 parts of the bill and make another 32 modifications in the text.

However, at a news conference on Friday the government did not give specific details on the changes, leaving that to be clarified today in the Federal Register (“Diário Oficial”) when the vetoes and a presidential temporary measure (“medida provisória”) will be published establishing the appropriate legislation necessary for the modifications to become law.

 According to Luís Inácio Adams, the head of the office of government attorneys (“advogado-geral da União”), out of the 32 modifications, 14 revert to the text approved in the Senate at the end of last year; 5 are new and 13 are adjustments or corrections (“ajustes ou adequacies de conteúdo”).

Adams explained that the decision not to announce details on Friday was because the government wanted to follow protocol and ensure that the information reached Congress first. He added that the government does not expect difficulties in approving the new text in Congress.

However, Marcio Astrini, the Greenpeace representative in Brazil was angry about the lack of details at the Friday news conference. “Brazil goes to sleep tonight without knowing what kind of Land Use Law it has. We expected the government to tell us something, but what we got were speeches that did not say anything to society or explain the changes in the Codigo Florestal,” he declared.

At the same time, the Brazilian Forest Defense Committee (“Comitê Brasil em Defesa das Florestas”), an umbrella organization that speaks for 160 institutions, including WWF, SOS Mata Atlântica and others, most of them strongly in favor of a total veto of the bill approved by the Chamber of Deputies, cancelled a press conference on Friday in protest over the lack of information.

Even so, the general lines of the Codigo Florestal that will return to Congress where presidential vetoes can be overturned with a simple majority were pretty clear on Friday. As expected, in line with campaign promises made by Dilma Rousseff, the Chamber of Deputies text on the recuperation of Permanent Protection Areas (“APPs”) was among those items vetoed. The new text will be much more rigid in dealing with deforestation in APPs (that are located along rivers and on hillsides and hilltops) and contain mandatory “return to original state” clauses (the exact size of the area to be recuperated, along rivers, for example (Article 61), will depend on the size of the river and the size of the property).

The limited information available was sufficient to get deputy Zequinha Sarney (PV-MA), a former minister of Environment, to praise what Dilma Rousseff had done. On the other hand, members of the rural lobby (“bancada ruralista”) reacted angrily to what they saw as a bill created to please the environmentalists and warned that there were possible legal problems (“insegurança juridical”) if certain items were changed or vetoed (for example, Article 1). There was also criticism of the use of presidential decrees (“medidas provisórias”).