UK’s plans to protect deforestation
In order to deal with deforestation in Brazil, UK has announced £10 million in a bid to care for wild life and decrease carbon emissions resulting in increased climate change. This has been announced by Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, Sunday 4 December 2011, at the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa.
The officials reported that the money would help farmers in Cerrado, central Brazil in several ways such as in reduction of forest fires, in restoration of natural habitats and facilitate in the pressure for more deforestation to provide land for agriculture.
Speaking at the conference on International Forest Day, Mrs Spelman said,
The Cerrado is rich in biodiversity and yet, alarmingly, it has almost halved in size, because of wild fires and the demand for agricultural products. If we’re going to stop the loss of biodiversity, we need to protect our forests – which house the majority of the world’s wildlife. We won’t succeed in tackling climate change unless we deal with deforestation.
The £10 million funding I’m announcing today will help farmers in the Cerrado to restore natural habitats, reduce forest fires, and ease the pressure for more deforestation to provide land for agriculture in the Cerrado.
Izabella Teixeira, Brazilian Environment Minister, welcomed the two-sided assistance,
In past years, Brazil has been leading a consistent policy to reduce deforestation. In the Amazon region, we managed to reduce deforestation from 27 thousand km² in 2004 to 7 thousand km² in 2010, a 75% decrease. This successful experience in the Amazon has inspired us to broaden it to other affected regions, such as the Cerrado, the Brazilian savannah. In this context, we welcome the timely cooperation between Brazil and the United Kingdom, in line with the Brazilian interest to protect its forests and eradicate poverty.
According to “Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)” UK government is giving help to the developing countries in order to inhibit the loss of forests to deal with the environmental changes, so that the gross tropical deforestation could be reduced to one half by 2020 and net global deforestation could be halted by 2030.
From wildlife charity WWF,
According to the latest chapter of WWF’s Living Forests Report, “Forests and Climate”, the world stands to lose 55.5 million hectares of forest between now and 2020, even if we take urgent action to reduce deforestation. If the world delays the necessary steps, we stand to lose 124.7 million hectares by 2030, according to the report.
