Evolving from a Forest Code to a Biodiversity Code

Abstract

Given the enormity of the territory and the actual situation of the brazilian macro biomes - brazilian Amazonia, brazilian Tropical Atlantic Forest, Cerrados of Central brazil, Araucaria Plateau, and the Mixed Subtropical Grasslands of brazil - and its numerous mini-biomes, transition areas and remnants of ecosystems, any attempt to change the brazilian Forest Code has to be conducted by competent and bioethical sensitive persons. Any movement to improve the current Forest Code would have to broaden its scope and move towards a biodiversity Code, to be able to consider properly the complexity of ecosystems and vegetation mosaics of our territory. While the whole world is working towards a radical reduction of CO2 emissions, the changes in the Forest Code approved by the Special Commission of the brazilian Congress advocates a process that will result in a wave of deforestation and uncontrolled emissions of carbon dioxide, a fact already registered by many critics in several papers and interviews. The utopia of economic development with a maximum of standing forests can not be destroyed by radical changes in the Forest Code. It is necessary to think in the complexity of the whole territory, working with an expanded biodiversity Code based in correct principles of development with environmental protection and biodiversity conservation. That means thinking about our great forests (Amazon and Atlantic rain Forest), the domain of Caatingas and Agrestes; the Central Plateau covered by Cerrado, Cerradões and native grasslands; the highlands of Southern brazil covered by Araucaria Forest; the mixed grasslands of the Pampas in rio Grande do Sul; the refuge and mini-biomes from the brazilian Cost and from the Pantanal, as well as al the transition zones between "core areas" of all morphoclimatic and phytogeographic brazilian domains.