Brazil’s President Michel Temer is ignoring pleas from both supermodel Gisele Bundchen and the Norwegian Prime Minister by submitting a bill to Congress that would reduce protections of a large national forest in the Amazon, just weeks after vetoing similar legislation.
The new bill would downgrade the legal protections governing around 27 percent, or close to 350,000 hectares, of the Jamanxim national forest in the northern state of Para. The original proposal, vetoed last month on the eve of the president’s trip to Norway, would have reduced the area under preservation by nearly 600,000 hectares, according to World Wildlife Fund. During Temer’s visit, Norway announced plans to cut its funding of Amazonian conservation projects due to Brazil’s failure to prevent a rise in illegal deforestation.
