Vice President and Congress begin negotiations on a new Codigo Florestal

Vice president Michel Temer reports that negotiations have begun in
Congress to draw up another Land Use Law (“Codigo Florestal”) as it is
expected that president Dilma Rousseff will veto parts or all of the
bill that was passed in the Chamber of Deputies at the end of April.

“There may be vetoes. Members of Congress are negotiating with the
government. The objective is to reach an agreement on a new text that
will adequately reflect what the government thinks and what the Congress
thinks,” declared the vice president, a former president of the PMDB
known for his negotiating skills.

At the end of last year, the government negotiated a satisfactory
Codigo Florestal bill that was approved at that time by the Senate.
However, even though the Senate bill had been subjected to hearings and
discussions involving environmentalists, the executive branch and
Congress (including members of the farm lobby in the Chamber of
Deputies), the government was taken by surprise when the lower house
rejected the Senate bill, rewrote the text and passed a Codigo Florestal
that was completely different. The fingerprints of more extreme
elements in the farm lobby (“bancada ruralista”) were all over it. The
bill, instead of expanding protected areas, recovering areas already
destroyed (“return to original state”) and reducing deforestation in
Brazil (as the government wanted), would open huge new areas to
deforestation and older pasture and crop areas to further destruction as
ranchers and farmers would be allowed to expand their activities.

Arriving almost on the eve of the Rio+20 United Nations Sustainable
Development Conference, the radical wording of the bill put the
government in an uncomfortable position. The president has made it clear
that the bill is not acceptable and at least two ministers
(Institutional Relations and Environment) have gone public with
declarations in favor of vetoing parts or all of the it. President Dilma
has until May 25 to make a decision.