29/11/18

法律调整可能破坏亚马逊森林

茂密的森林
茂密的森林Copyright: Panos

速度阅读

  • 巴西的Terra法律法意味着可能会挑战一群雨林的保护地位
  • Private landowners could drastically reduce the amount of land they keep pristine
  • President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who prizes development over conservation, exacerbates the problem

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Proposed changes to legislation that protects areas of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil may be exploited to deforest up to 15 million hectares of land, a study has found.

The Forest Code, a regulation approved half a century ago, says that owners of land in the Brazilian rainforest must set aside 80 per cent of their plots for conservation. But as of 2012, the rules were revised so that the proportion can be reduced to 50 per cent, if more than 65 per cent of the state in which the land is situated is given over to reservations for土著人民or other protected areas.

The risks of this happening now look more imminent. In 2017, a law known as Terra Legal was approved in the country and it is coming into force. The law is designed to allow indigenous people to claim ownership of millions of hectares of officially unowned land. It was hoped that the programme would create conservation areas and protect land used by indigenous people.

但是,研究人员警告说,该计划可能会允许私人一种机制要求土地所有权,从而成为一种手段de毁根据修订的森林法规条款。

“修正案还可以通过人类活动为大型二氧化碳排放铺平道路,从而有助于全球变暖。”

FlávioFreitas,KTH皇家技术学院

The conclusions are based on a发表在自然的可持续性earlier this month. Researchers used a model to combine geographicaldata在保护单位,土著储量,军事土地和私人农村财产的边界上,模拟了没有终身数据集的地区的土地边界。

他们发现,如果Terra Legal为挑战提供空间,将在6.5至1500万公顷的先前保护的私人土地(大约达到突尼斯的大小面积)中,例如伐木和养牛。

“Besides this impact, the amendment could also pave the way for large carbon dioxide emissions through human activity, contributing to global warming,,” says lead author author Flávio Freitas,a Brazilian PhD studentat the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. His work was supported by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

Landowners in Brazilian states like Amapá, Amazonas, Acre and Roraima, which are largely covered with native vegetation and have extensive areas of undesignated land, would qualify for reducing the amount of protected areas from 80 to 50 per cent, the study warns. The problem is compounded by Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician who has repeatedly said that he prioritises economic development overbeplay足球体育的微博环境保护.

“These legal weaknesses should be urgently fixed, especially with Jair Bolsonaro coming into power,” says William Laurance, a biologist at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. He argues that Bolsonaro will be much more inclined than previous leaders towards allowing private companies to tear into remote and vulnerable areas of the Amazon.

劳伦斯说:“这是非常令人担忧的,因为不受保护的私人土地遍布整个西部和中部亚马逊。”“这些地区的森林剥削可能会导致大规模的森林损失和分散,非法伐木,道路建造和采矿。”

The Amazon rainforest has already lost 17 per cent of its plant cover in the past 50 years, according to the WWF, an international environmental lobby group. The country’s forest cover—通常称为肺地球的属于地球 - 保持全球公司至关重要2水平。

SCIDEV.NET的捐助者FAPESP支持了自然可持续性发表的研究。