CLAUS C. MEYER/PNI

The Brazilian legislature is close to passing the first national law explicitly protecting Brazil's Atlantic rain forest, a 95,000-square-kilometer natural area along the country's east coast-comparable to Madagascar in its richness of unique species, and considered equally endangered.

While less famous than the much larger Amazonian rain forest, the geographically isolated Atlantic rain forest has hundreds of plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. For example, 17 of the 23 species and subspecies of primates living there are endemic, says primatologist Anthony Rylands of the University of Minas Gerais. "They're good indicators of biodiversity," he says. But logging and other development have destroyed more than 90% of the original habitat.

What's left would get more protection than ever before under a proposed law in the Chamber of Deputies that would promote regeneration and sustainable use, and criminalize illegal deforestation. The bill is a compromise, however, resulting from a bitter fight this fall in which environmentalists attacked industry-supported proposals to allow municipalities to control land-use decisions and to drop a requirement for environmental impact assessments. After a storm of editorials and letters in major newspapers, political leaders deleted these sections, according to biologist João Paulo Capobianco, head of the Social and Environmental Institute in São Paolo. The final draft legislation, he says, "is very good, better than the original." For example, older secondary forest now has the same status as old growth forest, a provision not in the original draft.

With the major battles over, Capobianco was "very optimistic" that the bill would pass a Chamber of Deputies vote as soon as this week. He also expects smooth sailing in the Senate and approval by the president.