Tweets,

Having read Diann MacRae's earlier message about the political struggle
going on in Brazil over a proposed forest code and reasoning that people
might be more inclined to participate if they could understand the
Portuguese text, I have translated the web page that the link in Diann's
message takes you to. So, please read the translation of that page below,
then follow the instructions in Diann's message to generate automatic
messages to Brazil's President and Congress in favor of a forest code that
encourages protection of Brazilian rain forest land.

Steve Kimball
Federal Way, WA
sdkimball at earthlink.net

TRANSLATION OF SOS FOREST CAMPAIGN WEB PAGE

SOS Forest Campaign

Help protect our forests. Let?s fight to have the new Forest Code passed.

Let?s guarantee the passage in Congress of the proposal that has been
democratically put together by Conama (The National Council for the
Environment).

Participate Now [Hyperlink]?send your message to the members of Congress who
will decide the future of the new Forest Code.


The history that you need to know

In December of last year, members of the National Congress representing
rural districts tried to change the Forest Code, in order to replace it with
one that had been developed without public participation. The text, which
was scheduled for a vote, allowed for the uncontrolled conversion of native
forests into agricultural areas, including plantations of eucalyptus and
other non-native trees. In addition to promoting deforestation, if it had
been approved, the proposal of the rural representatives would have caused
great harm to natural resources such as biodiversity, water resources and
soil fertility.

Your participation is essential

With the help of persons such as yourself we succeeded in blocking passage
of this law which is so harmful to society and caused the text [of the law]
to be debated in The National Council for the Environment (Conama), the
supreme body of the sector that brings together all of the interested
parties.

A new proposal for the Forest Code

After 30 working meetings, on the 29th of March, Conama approved a new
Forest Code proposal, the result of a broad public debate that took place
through 25 public meetings in 20 different states and included the
participation of 730 organizations representing small farmers, industry,
state, municipal and federal government, the Public Prosecution Service,
universities, trade unions and environmental organizations. Among other
changes, the Conama text proposes to create a Legal Reserve Fund, an
instrument for compensating property owners who wish to protect a larger
portion of native forest than the minimum required.

Participate in this campaign

Despite having participated in the entire process and successfully managing
to introduce various changes that they favored, the National Agriculture
Confederation and the rural Congressional representatives have not accepted
that part of the text that stipulates legal restrictions for the Amazon area
and are now mobilizing to keep the Conama proposal from being passed by the
National Congress. For this reason we need you to participate in this
campaign so that the Forest Code will continue to be a law oriented toward
protection of the environmental balance in large areas of the country.