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Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has decided to veto parts of a new forestry law that environmentalists say would lead to a wave of deforestation in the Amazon, a senior official said Friday.
"The president of the Republic decided in favor of carrying out diverse vetoes and modifications to the draft law that deals with the forestry code," government lawyer Luis Inacio Adams, said at a news conference.
The overhaul of the 1965 forestry law approved by Congress a month ago had been seen as a victory for a powerful agri-business lobby after years of battling with environmentalists, but it is embarrassing for Brazil less than a month before it hosts the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development.
Environment Minister, Izabella Teixeira, said that in vetoing parts of the bill the government was seeking to ensure that there is no reduction in those areas of the Amazon and other sensitive ecosystems that are protected.
She said the ...