Developers win first round in Brazil Amazon battle

  • 06/12/2000

A Brazilian congressional commission this week approved a bill that environmentalists say could accelerate destruction of the Amazon jungle, the world's largest tropical forest, if it becomes law. At a lively session disrupted by banner-waving activists, the commission voted 13-2 in favor of the bill. It calls for local environmental and land-use studies and proposes allowing current limits on logging on private land in the Amazon to be relaxed if the studies support the change.