Lax rules allow ongoing clearing of Brazil’s Cerrado

December 2023

Region

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Brazil

Lax rules allow ongoing clearing of Brazil’s Cerrado

For decades, environmental experts have said Brazil should tighten land-clearing restrictions in the Cerrado, the vast, wooded savannah south of the country’s portion of the ......

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Lax rules allow ongoing clearing of Brazil’s Cerrado

Brazil

Brazil’s Cerrado has become the focus of fast-expanding soybean operations. (Photo by Rogeiro.Gama39/Shutterstock)

For decades, environmental experts have said Brazil should tighten land-clearing restrictions in the Cerrado, the vast, wooded savannah south of the country’s portion of the Amazon rainforest. But the country’s forest-protection law, known as the Forest Code, has remained relatively permissive when it comes to the Cerrado. There, landowners may legally deforest 65% to 80% of their property while Brazilian Amazon landowners—on paper, at any rate—are permitted to clear no more than 20%. Experts say this discrepancy helps explain why the latest land-clearing data reveal a slight acceleration in the Cerrado despite a decline in the pace of Brazilian Amazon deforestation. Government figures show that in the 12 months ending July 31, 2023, the rate of Brazil’s Amazon forest loss declined 23%—due in part, experts say, to an enforcement crackdown ordered by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office on Jan. 1... [Log in to read more]

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December 2023

Region

Region shows notable lack of coordination at COP28

Latin American and Caribbean government officials at December’s COP28 climate summit took aim at developed nations for failing to control greenhouse-gas emissions and neglecting to ......

Brazil

Lax rules allow ongoing clearing of Brazil’s Cerrado

For decades, environmental experts have said Brazil should tighten land-clearing restrictions in the Cerrado, the vast, wooded savannah south of the country’s portion of the ......

Commonwealth of Dominica

Dominica creating marine reserve for sperm whales

The Lesser Antilles island nation of Dominica is setting up a marine reserve to protect its native sperm whale population, a project that is also ......

Region

Treaty authorities warn Ecuador on shark exports

In April 2020, Hong Kong customs officials opened two containers from Ecuador ostensibly holding frozen fish. Inside, they found 26 tons of fins shorn from ......

Peru

Forest-law modification causes controversy in Peru

In a surprise move on Dec. 15, Peru’s Congress approved a change to the country’s Forest and Wildlife Law that supporters say will confer long-overdue ......

Around the Region

Killing points up risks to green advocates in Peru

A Kichwa Indigenous leader who had received multiple death threats was murdered on Nov. 29 as he returned to his home in Peru’s San Martín ......

Centerpiece (Free Read)

California condors making comeback in Mexico

North America’s largest bird, the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), was declared extinct in Mexico in 1939, but a two-decade effort to return the enormous raptor ......

Q&A (Free Read)

Mexico uses citizen science to help assess state of its bird population

As in other countries in Latin America, concern is growing in Mexico that bird populations are buckling under pressures ranging from overfishing and mining pollution ......