The newspaper, back in its paper days (1908-2008), was always excellent.  As a web resource, we are glad it has found firmer footing.  And some stories and contributors make its Latin America coverage particularly worth watching.

This contributor, for example, is monitoring from Brazil some very important environmental issues.  In this piece (click the image to the left to go to the contributor’s blog, from which the Monitor has drawn the material) he shares insight into the complexity of the life of a new law.  The good news, in short:

The Código Forestal or Forest Code now being debated in Congress will determine the future of Brazil’s forests, including the world’s last great rainforest, the Amazon. In order to make good on a 1965 forest code that was rarely if ever enforced, President Dilma Rousseff introduced strong legislation in 2010.

The not so good news:

Legislators in the Lower House then weakened the bill substantially…[and it now] “constitutes one of the worst regressions for environmental legislation in Brazil,” according to Marina Silva, the rebellious Minister of the Environment under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the third place candidate in the last presidential election. The Forest Code’s policy example illustrates how representational democracy is not translating citizen interests into law, a universal problem that travels far beyond Brazil.