Brazil President vetoes parts of controversial forest law

Dilma Rousseff, the Brazilian president, has rejected divisive elements of a new law that would relax the forest cover farmers must preserve on their land.

The president used a line-item veto on Friday to send back parts of the congressional bill in what the government said was an effort to prevent further deforestation of the Amazon.

The announcement was made by Brazil's environmental minister Izabella Teixeira, during a joint press conference with agriculture minister Jorge Mendes Ribeiro and rural development minister Gilberto Jose Vargas.

Brazil's farmers' lobby had argued that an easing of environmental restrictions would promote food production.

Environmentalists oppose the law, which they say will lead to further destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

The bill was approved by the Brazilian Congress a month ago. Environmentalists had urged President Rousseff to veto the entire bill.

President Rousseff rejected 12 articles from the bill and made 32 modifications to the text.

Among the 12 articles which President Rousseff rejected is an amnesty for illegal loggers.

The exact details of the revised document have not yet been made public, but Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said the government wanted to avoid diminishing protected areas of the Amazon and other sensitive ecosystems.

The version of the bill passed by the Brazilian Congress last month would have allowed for huge areas of the country, which had been illegally logged before July 2008, to be opened up to farming.

It would also have allowed farming closer to riverbanks, which are especially vulnerable to erosion if trees are chopped down.

The forest code will continue to require that growers maintain forest coverage equating to 20% of the farm'sarea in much of the southeast, 35% in Savannah areas and 80% in the hot and humid Amazon. 
 
Rousseff's changes put the onus on larger-scale farmers to replace a larger portion of their missing forest cover, while there would be a sliding scale for small properties, which Teixeira said were less able to spare land for forest cover. 

Rousseff has long indicated she wanted a bill that was less rigorous for smaller, poor farmers and ranchers in the Amazon and elsewhere.

But environmentalists, including Green Peace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had called for a complete veto of the entire bill, saying any weakening of the law could provide incentives for further illegal deforesting by letting off those who have cleared land until now without authorisation and by requiring a lesser amount be restored.

The groups, who question the government's ability to enforce the provisions of the bill, also said details of numerous changes she has made have yet to be made public.

"President Rousseff's statement today creates an uncertain future for Brazilian forests, considering the Congress could still cut forest protections even further," said Jim Leape, WWF's international director general. 

The bill now goes back to Congress, where legislators have 30 days to override Rousseff's changes with a simple majority, which is considered unlikely.

Rousseff's veto comes ahead of the Rio 20 summit by the United Nations on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro.