Brasília, April 7, 2004 (Agência Brasil) - A meeting today in the Senate between Senator Aloizio Mercadante (PT/SP), the Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, and the rapporteur of the "Atlantic Rain Forest" project, Senator César Borges (PFL/BA), served to establish an agenda of discussions to help win approval for a Chamber of Deputies bill dealing with the use and protection of vegetation in the Atlantic Rain Forest Biome. They hope to get the bill approved by May 17, Atlantic Rain Forest Day.

According to Minister Silva, the effort that is being made at this moment is to have the project approved as quickly as possible and ratified next month. She affirmed that "Making possible the preservation of the 7% that is still left of the Atlantic Rain Forest is the main objective."

Productive activities that are already permitted by law will not be altered in any way by the new law, the Minister observed.

Translator: David Silberstein