UK branches out to take deforestation lead
Tuesday, 20 October 2009 2:30 PM
Britain has pledged £100 million to a global deforestation initiative, in a bid to reduce the number of trees being lost daily around the world.
At present eight million trees are cut down daily and by contributing £100 million of the £220 million forest investment programme (FIP) fund Britain hopes to take the lead in spearheading the response to the problem.
Britain will provide £50 million upfront and the other half on the success of initial measures, which will be piloted by up to eight countries in vulnerable tropical regions.
Projects which could be trialled include giving forest rangers the powers to prevent illegal logging; encouraging more advanced agricultural techniques to reduce the need of farmers to expand their grazing lands; and reforestation.
"In many parts of the developing world a tree is more valuable dead than alive," international development secretary Douglas Alexander said.
"We need strong, decisive action now and at Copenhagen to reverse this dangerous situation."
The UN framework convention on climate change meets in the Danish capital in December to negotiate a successor deal to Kyoto, in a crucial bid to prevent global warming causing catastrophic climate change.
Deforestation will play a key part in the negotiations, as representatives of the 17-country member Major Economies Forum were told by the Prince of Wales on Sunday evening.
Hosting a dinner for MEF participants as they met for a two-day summit in London, Prince Charles pressed that "without the rainforests there is no solution to climate change".
The destruction of the world's rainforests is the third largest contributor to global carbon emissions.
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