Untangling Brazil's controversial new forest code
Thursday, April 24, 2014 - 13:20
in Earth & Climate
Approved in 2012, Brazil's new Forest Code has few admirers. Agricultural interests argue that it threatens the livelihoods of farmers. Environmentalists counter that it imperils millions of hectares of forest, threatening to release the billions of tons of carbon they contain. A new study, co-authored by Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) scientists Michael Coe, Marcia Macedo and Brazilian colleagues, published this week in Science, aims to clarify the new law. Entitled "Cracking Brazil's Forest Code," the article is the first to quantify the implications of recent changes to the Forest Code and identify new opportunities and challenges for conservation.