looks like another crap circular

[dainhumain]

The Brazilian congress is now voting on a project that will reduce the Amazon forest to 50% of its size.

It will only take you 1 MINUTE to read this, but PLEASE register your objection by adding your name to the petition list below and sending this message on, as instructed below

First, some facts: the Amazon rainforest is responsible for the generation of 20% of the oxygen that we on this earth breathe, 30% of the world's freshwater is contained within the Amazon basin,

60% of the cancer fighting
drugs used today are derived from plants that can only be found within the Amazon rainforest.

The area to be deforested is 4 times the size of
Portugaland would be mainly used for agriculture and pastures for livestock. All thewood is to be sold to international markets in the form of wood chips,
by large multinational companies.

The truth is that the soil in the Amazon forest is useless without


the
forest itself. Its quality is very acidic and the region is prone to constant floods.

At this time more than 160,000 square kilometres
deforested with the same purpose are abandoned and in the process of becoming deserts, meaning that this proposal is in the short-term interests of a few,
&
in the long term interests of none.
Please copy (cut & paste) the entire text into a 'new e-mail', put your complete name in the list below, and send to everyone you know.

If you are the 400th person to sign please send a copy to:

fsaviolo@openlink.com.br

[spoon]

it's false - http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/brazil.htm

Origins: There is indeed "only one Brazilian rainforest" — in the Amazon, an area twice as large as the country of France and the home to about half of all the plant and animal species in the world. The Amazon was relatively untouched until the 1970s, but since then its size has been reduced by about 14% due to logging and farming activities which continue to destroy another six to seven thousand square miles per year.

Brazil's current Forest Code, established in 1965, requires landowners to protect a minimum of 80% of their pristine rain forest land holdings from development. A draft law recently put before the Brazilian Congress proposed that the minimum area of protection be reduced from 80% to 50% (and that the minimum be reduced from the current 50% to 20% in savannah areas as well). The proposed law was shelved by Brazil's Congress on 18 May 2000, so the specifics of this petition are now outdated (and the e-mail address given is no longer valid).