READ ON BRAZILIAN FORESTRY CODE AND PRACTISE YOUR ENGLISH

[Received from my friend Sergio Rolim Mendonça who handed over this English lesson from Charles Valadão; selected and edited by Orlando Eduardo] Winners and losers still in dark in Brazil forest fight By Samantha Pearson May 26, 2012 It couldn’t have been a bigger anticlimax. Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff had until today to announce whether she would veto a controversial new forestry bill(1) that will help decide the fate of the Amazon rainforest. Would Dilma give in to the powerful agricultural lobby that has pushed the bill, watering(2) it down as it progressed through the legislative process? Or, faced with the potentially embarrassing prospect of hosting the Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development next month, would she throw out the whole text in disgust? Furthermore, after so many alterations, was the patchwork(3) text still even enforceable in practice? After numerous delays the government finally called a press conference at 2pm, but Dilma was nowhere to be seen. Instead, her agricultural and environmental ministers turned up(4) and declared there would be a partial veto (12 articles, 32 alterations in total)but said we would have to wait until Monday to know what they were. Only a few concrete details were given, such as the way in which the minimum requirement for vegetation alongside rivers would be calculated in accordance with the size of the land owned. While promises were made about not granting(5) farmers amnesty for past illegal logging(6)– a key issue – it is still too early to tell how this will be reflected in the changes made to the bill. For the hardcore environmentalists, it was somewhat of a defeat – after all, they had hoped for a full veto of the text. However, it seems we will have to wait until Monday to see who the winners and losers really are. VOCABULARY 1 *bill (n) proposed piece of legislation; a draft of a proposed law presented to parliament for discussion 2 watering (v) water down - to reduce or temper the force or effectiveness of : They watered down the plan 3 patchwork (n) ASSORTMENT, miscellany, mixture, melange, medley, blend, mixed bag, mix 4 turned up (verb phrase) the police turned up: ARRIVE, appear, present oneself; show (up), show one's face. 5 *granting (v) GIVE, award: he granted them £20,000. 6 logging (n) practice or work of cutting down trees into logs (block of wood) for lumber (the wood of trees cut and prepared for use as building material); business of felling trees for timber (wood prepared for use in building and carpentry)

THE TOP 10 WATER CONSUMERS IN THE WORLD

[Reproduced from Scintific American site]

A vast amount of water is used to produce the food and products that nations consume. Large population is the greatest factor, but inefficient agriculture or dependence on water-intensive cuisine can exacerbate demand; meat consumption accounts for 30 percent of the U.S. water footprint. Certain countries, such as India and the U.S., also export significant quantities of water in the form of food and products, despite their own robust consumption. Populous nations that have little land or little water are huge net importers. Those insights come from engineers Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Mesfin M. Mekonnen of the University of Twente in the Neth­erlands. Over the long term, net exporters may want to alter trade policies to avoid creating their own water shortages or raise prices to reflect the cost of increasingly scarce water resources. Inefficient water nations might improve agricultural practices. And net importers might lower exports to save water for domestic use. We have in Brazil, actually in Northeastern region of our country, a 'perverse situation' when relating water consumption in that region, 5000 cubic meter per habitant per year, to water consumed in Israel, 800 cubic meter per habitant per year. One third of water in that region of Brazil is known to be wasted in irrigation for crops.

THE ATLANTIC FOREST OF BRAZIL: ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT HOTSPOTS IN THE WORLD

[From CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL - THE BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS] In South America: the Atlantic Forest of Brazil (see the map0

A Golden Lion Tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) from the Atlantic Forest, Brazil © CI/Photo by Haroldo Castro

The Atlantic Forest of tropical South America boasts 20,000 plant species, 40 percent of which are endemic. Yet, less than 10 percent of the forest remains. More than two dozen Critically Endangered vertebrate species are clinging to survival in the region, including three species of lion tamarins and six bird species that are restricted to the small patch of forest near the Murici Ecological Station in northeastern Brazil. With almost 950 kinds of birds occurring in this hotspot, there are many unique species including the red-billed curassow, the Brazilian merganser, and numerous threatened parrot species. Beginning with sugarcane plantations and later, coffee plantations, this region has been losing habitat for hundreds of years. Now, with the increased expansion of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, the Atlantic Forest is facing severe pressure from the issues tied to urbanization. VITAL SIGNS Hotspot Original Extent (km²) 1,233,875 Hotspot Vegetation Remaining (km²) 99,944 Endemic Plant Species 8,000 Endemic Threatened Birds 55 Endemic Threatened Mammals 21 Endemic Threatened Amphibians 14 Extinct Species† 1 Human Population Density (people/km²) 87 Area Protected (km²) 50,370 Area Protected (km²) in Categories I-IV* 22,782 †Recorded extinctions since 1500. *Categories I-IV afford higher levels of protection. OVERVIEW The Atlantic Forest or Mata Atlântica stretches along Brazil's Atlantic coast, from the northern state of Rio Grande do Norte south to Rio Grande do Sul. It extends inland to eastern Paraguay and the province of Misiones in northeastern Argentina, and narrowly along the coast into Uruguay. Also included in this hotspot is the offshore archipelago of Fernando de Noronha and several other islands off the Brazilian coast. Long isolated from other major rainforest blocks in South America, the Atlantic Forest has an extremely diverse and unique mix of vegetation and forest types. The two main ecoregions in the hotspot are the coastal Atlantic forest, the narrow strip of about 50-100 kilometers along the coast which covers about 20 percent of the region. The second main ecoregion, the interior Atlantic Forest, stretches across the foothills of the Serra do Mar into southern Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. These forests extend as far as 500-600 kilometers inland and range as high as 2,000 meters above sea level. Altitude determines at least three vegetation types in the Atlantic Forest: the lowland forest of the coastal plain, montane forests, and the high-altitude grassland or campo rupestre.