October 5, 2007

Brazil's top soy state proposes to halt deforestation

Blairo Maggi, the governor of Brazil's top soy-producing state, Mato Grosso, proposed a five-year ban on planting new crops in the Amazon to halt deforestation, business daily Gazeta Mercantil reported Thursday.

Maggi is also the country's leading soy producer.

He suggested the ban in congress Wednesday during a Lower House meeting to discuss deforestation policies in the Amazon.

Maggi said his state would agree to no new areas being opened up for farming in his state, the newspaper reported.

Non-governmental organizations Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the WWF, and six others met with congress Wednesday to discuss the policy, Greenpeace said in a press release.

The pact, known as the National Forestry Pact for Ending Amazon Deforestation, recognised the Amazon region as a fundamental regulator of climate change.

The pact establishes a series of measures to progressively reduce Amazon deforestation to zero by 2015. Greenpeace estimated costs to be around 1 billion Brazilian reals (US$549 million) per year, which would come from federal and state budgets and donor money from the nine NGOs.