WWF, Greenpeace and Avaaz will today begin a mass mobilization of their 22 million supporters to call on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to veto the Forest Code bill passed by the House of

Forests in the Amazon Basin are expected to be less vulnerable to wildfires this year, according to the first forecast from a new fire severity model developed by university and NASA researchers.

Brazilian lawmakers have passed controversial new legislation that eases regulations regarding the amount of land that farmers must preserve as forest, a move that critics argue weakens environmental protections efforts and could lead to increased deforestation in the Amazon and other regions.

For the better part of the last half-century, the Amazonian forests have been plagued by deforestation from human farming activities.

MANAUS, Brazil, March 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Social and environmental activist Bianca Jagger raised the issue of "Sustainable development and human rights" during the discussions at