New Bill of Law favours deforestation

After a process that started with a Provisional Measure (MP 867), issued at the end of Temer’s Presidency in 2018, the Chamber of Deputies approved a new Bill of Law that allows the clearing of 5 million hectares of forests in the country, while creating obstacles to reforest another 4 million hectares. MP 867 originally proposed to extend the deadline to landowners and agricultural producers to register and adequate their operations to the Federal Forest Code. However, when the MP reached the Congress it was turned into a project of Law; as it was processed by different Commissions at the Senate and the House, 35 amendments were further added to the original text. Environmentalists accused Congress of “disfiguring the Forest Code”, saying that the new bill only favors further concentration of lands in the hands of a few owners.