Brazil Sets High Goals for Forest Protection

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (OneWorld.net) - Following reports that Amazon deforestation is on the rise, Brazil has produced a revised plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 70 percent over the next eight years. Environmental activists met the plan with tempered applause.

• A birds-eye view of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. © longan drink (flickr)Late last month, new figures released by a Brazilian space agency revealed an increase in deforestation across the nation. From August 2007 to July 2008, Brazil cleared 3.8 percent more Amazonian flora than in the previous year, "an unwelcome surprise following declines of 18 percent over the previous period," writes the environmental group WWF.

• If serious action is not taken to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the average global temperature will increase by an estimated 12 degrees Fahrenheit (6.4 degrees Celsius) by the end of the century, reports the Earth Policy Institute. Global warming, in turn, has been linked to rising sea levels, stronger storms, and severe droughts, all of which impact communities around the world, particularly by depressing food production at a time of global scarcity.

• OneWorld has sent a team to the United Nations climate negotiations again this year to open up this crucial conference to anybody and everybody around the world. OneWorld journalists will be providing a news roundup each day Dec. 6-12 and facilitating live interactive discussions online and in Second Life. Tune in at OneClimate.net at noon EST to stay up-to-date and take part.

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Brazil falls short with forest emission reduction ambitions

From: WWF

03 Dec 2008

Brasilia, Brail: Brazil's revised National Climate Change Plan, which for the first time defines goals for reducing massive emissions from deforestation in the Amazon, is commendable but still short on ambition and detail, WWF-Brazil said today.

The revised plan was released to coincide with the Conference of Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Poznan, Poland which is to put key processes in place to achieve an international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol by the next COP meeting in Copenhagen in December next year.

Under the revised plan, the Brazilian government establishes a goal of reducing the annual rate of deforestation by 40 per cent from average 1996-2005 levels during 2006-09, with reductions of a further 30 per cent in each of the subsequent four-year periods. The aim is to achieve a total decrease of over 70% by 2014-2017.

Achieving these goals would avoid 4.8 billion tons of CO2 emissions during 2006-2017, a figure greater than the annual emissions of the European Union.

"This goal is reasonably ambitious," says Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza, Conservation Director at WWF-Brazil. "To achieve it, next year deforestation will have to drop 23% in relation to this year."

In Brazil, land use and land use change represent 75% of greenhouse gas emissions, the vast majority originating from deforestation in the Amazon region. Hence reducing deforestation in the Amazon is a critical component of any strategy aimed at lowering Brazil´s greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the scenario defined in the plan, the average area of Amazon forest cleared each year would be 5,742 km2 by 2014-17.

"That´s bigger than the US state of Rhode Island," says Scaramuzza. "The CO2 released from clearing this area of Amazon forest would be roughly equivalent to the current annual emissions of Canada."

Together with eight other environmental NGOs, WWF-Brazil has proposed zero deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2015. According to Scaramuzza: "This goal is achievable if key actors-ranging from indigenous peoples to ranchers-are compensated for conserving the forest and thereby avoiding deforestation."

In August the government of Norway pledged US$1 billion toward a newly established Amazon Fund. This voluntary contribution complements the ongoing climate negotiations, which are contemplating payments for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Yet environmental NGOs such as WWF-Brazil have expressed concerns about the effectiveness of the Amazon Fund.

"This fund appears to be geared primarily to supporting government command-and-control programmes," says WWF-Brazil's CEO Denise Hamú. "To achieve more ambitious reductions in deforestation, it will be effective mechanisms to compensate the key actors on the ground who determine the fate of the forest."

As part of its long-term conservation strategy for the Amazon, WWF-Brazil supports a wide range of initiatives aimed at protecting natural ecosystems and managing natural resources.

WWF-Brazil assists the Brazilian government´s ambitious Amazon Protected Area (ARPA) programme, which aims to consolidate a total of 600,000 km2 in new and existing protected areas in the region by 2012. A recent study found that the protected areas established or planned for establishment in 2008 under the program would result in a total reduction of 5.1 gigatons of CO2 emissions by 2050, which is roughly equivalent to 14% of global CO2e emissions per year, or 70% of the emissions targeted for reduction under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.