In her successful 2010 bid to become president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff pledged to reconcile competing environmental and economic demands. But nearly a year since she took the oath of office, green advocates say Rousseff is breaking this vow in two high-profile ways. The first, they charge, is by endorsing a sweeping revision of the country’s forest code that would grant partial amnesty for illegal land-clearing throughout the country. Rousseff has said she’ll sign the bill if there is wide agreement on it in Congress. That threshold looks likely to be crossed soon: Congress, where the agricultural lobby has considerable clout, is preparing to give the forest-code revisions final approval. Meanwhile, green advocates complain that a law the president signed this month... [Log in to read more]