Brazil Wants $21 Billion to Protect the Amazon Rainforest with No Strings Attached
On Friday, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva headlined an event to officially launch a new international fund that will raise money to protect the Amazon Rainforest. “We are conscious of what the Amazon represents for the world… It’s better for the country’s image to do things right, so we can walk in international forums with our heads high,” Lula pontificated.
It is hoped that the fund will raise up to 21 billion dollars over the next 13 years from nations around the world. Norway has already chipped in, pledging 100 million dollars to kick things off. Brazil has made it clear though that donations are only being accepted with a condition of no strings being attached. In other words, countries that donate money will have no say over how the money is used.
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This stringent policy has its roots in resentment. Some Brazilians feel that they have been unfairly criticized by other countries for the deforestation of the Amazon. They claim that these nations often sit back and provide little in the means of help, or have their own environmental peccadilloes that make these slights toward Brazil’s conservation efforts hypocritical. Brazil’s Minister for Strategic Affairs, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, voiced this sentiment at the press conference: “The fund is a vehicle by which foreign governments can help support our initiatives without exerting any influence over our national policy. We are not going to trade sovereignty for money.”
According to one source, when carbon emissions from deforestation are included in the equation, Brazil ranks 4th worldwide in greenhouse emissions, only behind China, the United States, and Indonesia. The Amazon deforestation rate in Brazil has also increased somewhat this year. While Brazil is not the only country that contains the Amazon Rainforest within its borders, with 60% it does possess the largest single tract of the forest’s span. Eight other countries also contain parts of the Amazon, with Peru having the next largest piece of the pie at 13%. The difference percentage wise between the 1st and 2nd countries shows just how big of a player Brazil truly is when it comes to protecting the Amazon Rainforest.
The fund will be administered by a Brazilian bank owned by the government. The money will be used to support sustainable development projects like making condoms from rubber in trees, scientific research, and also to combat illegal logging. Whether or not the fund can attract donations remains to be seen– as well as Brazil’s ability to properly use the funds to sponsor legitimate efforts and research that will help to protect the Amazon. But the creation of the fund should be praised without doubt as an unequivocal step in the right direction for Brazil as leaders of conservation efforts in South America.
The Amazon Rainforest has been in the news quite a bit this year for several other reasons. The first photographs of a long-isolated tribe that live in the forest were released earlier this year, causing a media frenzy and false rumors of a hoax. The Brazilian Government’s plans to construct several new hydroelectric dams in the Amazon also came under scrutiny from numerous Brazilian tribes who claim they would be affected negatively by the dams.
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Photo Credit: laslzlo-photo on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
The funds should be based upon a percentage of rainforest that is lost during a given period. If the current rate of destruction is maintained “x” number of dollars will be paid. If the rate declines than the percentage of payment increases. I understand Brazil’s feelings about ‘no strings attached’ but accountability is another thing.
You all really need to watch The Energy Non Crisis and Google the video on John Perkins to get an ideal of what is really happening.
Let’s see, the world banks own the Amazon Basin, wonder what was put up for the last loan? Still, with what the war to keep oil based on the dollar costs, perhaps this would be cheap.
Rainforest need to be preserved, but carbon produced and ate is pretty much a wash, our air filters from the ocean, which we’ve pretty much screwed that up too.
[...] to limits mandated through the Kyoto Protocol. Norway initiated with $100 million. Now the catch. While announcing the fund, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that, Donations [...]
[...] million international fund to assist with conservation programs in the Amazon– but said that no strings would be attached. So far Norway is the only country to have donated money to the fund. They say they will donate [...]
I think Brazil is doing the right when it asks for help to protect the forest, first because now that most of the world has already cut its forest while Brazil kept it better than many, second because if other people want to tell a nation what to do in order to keep the climate cool enough to live, I think they should help by donating money. The Amazônia is larger than probably all European countries alone for exemple and it’s a challenge to keep it untouch by itself for the good of the rest of the world.
I think this world as one nation and we should help each other out, especially when one know it’s crucial for the future of humanity.
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Save Your World has teamed with the First Man to Walk the Amazon to Unite & Educate the World about the Most Threatened Eco-Systems left on Planet Earth
To visit the blog and interact with Ed Stafford in the Amazon, visit: http://store.saveyourworld.com/Walking-the-Amazon-s/1155.htm
“Save Your World believes that man can live in harmony with nature and that man must learn to preserve these pristine biodiverse areas in order to sustain survival for future generations and to allow them to enjoy these areas uncompromised,” said Scott Cecil, president of Save Your World. “The Walking the Amazon program can assist educators by creating an exciting and real-world learning experience for students. From geology and agriculture, to anthropology and even computer education, this journey can be a strong tool that will not only educate, but will improve the awareness of treating our Earth like the vital and fragile resource that it is.”
destroy it all
destroy it all
I propose a worldwide fund to nature. Humanity has had such a negative impact on the environment that we all are guilty. Let us hope that somehow the destructive path of humanity will be stopped or at least slowed to the point that mother nature can heal itself.
It’s funny how the 1st world countries engage in this moral crusade against the developing counties, imposing on them the blame for the world’s enviromental problems while the USA and the Western Europe are the real ones to be blamed. Basically, these rich countries want the developing one to keep their states green, while the rich states keep destroying with no bad feelings about it.