In Surprise Move, Brazil Has Removed Restrictions on Amazon Sugarcane Production

November 15, 2019

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by Naira Hofmeister (Mongabay) -Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree revoking a zoning regulation for the sugarcane industry, effectively allowing for cultivation of the crop in the Amazon and other areas of primary forest.
-The measure is controversial because it wasn’t requested by the industry, which, under the previous regulation, was permitted to expand onto degraded land and cattle pasture covering six times the area currently planted with sugarcane.
-The government has justified the move as necessary to boost the ethanol industry in Amazonian states, but experts warn the end of the zoning restriction could present an obstacle to ethanol exports to the European Union, damaging the biofuel sector.
-To date, the sugarcane industry has remained dissociated from the deforestation linked to the cattle and soy industries. Environmentalists say this new decree could end that exception, while also sending the message that the government sees no value in protecting standing forests. READ MORE

THE AMAZON, UNDONE--DEATH IN THE FOREST: A highway is speeding the destruction of the vital global resource. Along this stretch, the killings have already begun. (Washington Post)

How deforestation is pushing the Amazon toward a tipping point (Washington Post)