The Brazilian government has agreed to grant protected status to a 49.4-million-acre (20-million-hectare) swath of Amazon rainforest, an area more than half the size of Germany. But green groups say financial and technical resources must be guaranteed to ensure the land truly is conserved. Incra, Brazil’s land-reform agency, last month turned the first 4.1 million acres (1.67 million hectares) slated for protection over to Ibama, the government’s environmental enforcement arm. Ibama then converted that acreage into a national park (called Serra da Cotia) in western Rondônia state; two extractive reserves, also in Rondônia state, where logging will be banned but sustainable activities such as rubber tapping and nut gathering will be permitted; and four national forests in the states of... [Log in to read more]