Forests are disappearing rapidly in the tropics with about 13 million hectares – that’s an area the size of the Republic of Ireland – felled every seven months or so. Between 1980 and 2000 tropical forest cover declined by up to 2.5 million square kilometres.
An EU-commissioned study entitled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity was published in October 2008. It concluded that annual cost of forest loss alone is running at $2 – $5 trillion. This is double the putative total losses to date on Wall Street, but the natural capital losses are occurring year after year.
The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) negotiations for the Copenhagen summit raise big questions about how money will be raised to preserve the forests, exactly what it is for and how it should be distributed.
Greenpeace and other NGOs advocate a simple approach:
- For each forest country establish a baseline, where forests are right now
- Monitor what happens to them using satellite imagery and on-the-ground research
- Reward financially those developing countries which accurately monitor and report on their mitigation actions.
Other approaches, such as assigning carbon credits for carbon stored in the trees and allowing the credits to be traded against emissions reductions elsewhere, would be more complicated and risk allowing virgin forests to be replaced with monoculture plantations.
Sky and the World Wildlife Fund have launched a partnership with the Brazilian state of Acre to protect rainforest covering over 3 million hectares to help combat climate change and preserve the unique habitat and species of the Amazon.
The project will create economic incentives for local communities to make the trees more valuable alive than dead and will enhance Acre’s ability to monitor illegal logging and forest clearance. Sky and WWF are calling for donations of £10 each to save 500 trees. Sky will match the donations pound for pound up to a target of £4 million. A pilot project will begin early next year. For more details, go to