Plans for a global fund to help contain rainforest destruction and slash
carbon emissions will be unveiled next month by the Brazilian government.
The project, by which rich nations would offer financial incentives to
developing countries that combat deforestation, will be announced at a November
convention on climate change in Nairobi.
Championed by Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister, officials claim the
fund would help protect tropical forests while giving a much-needed economic
impetus to the developing world.
"It is a win-win situation," a Brazilian government source told the Guardian,
describing the plans as Brazil's contribution to the global fight against
climate change. "The climate wins, the developing countries win and those
industrialised countries who will be fulfilling their obligations [to reduce
deforestation] win."
News of Brazil's proposals followed crossed swords with the British
government, after the environment secretary, David Miliband, raised doubts over
Brazil's capacity to protect the rainforest.
In an interview on October 1 Mr Miliband reportedly suggested creating an
"international trust" to manage the world's largest tropical rainforest. The
British government denied Mr Miliband's comments but they caused anger among
Brazilians, many of whom are suspicious of foreign intervention in the Amazon.
In a newspaper article entitled "The Amazon is not for sale", three senior
Brazilian ministers this week championed the idea of an international fund and
suggested that attempts to "privatise" the rainforest were an attack on the
country's sovereignty. They added that "well-intentioned" outsiders were
"ignorant of the reality of the Amazon rainforest" and should stick to trying to
influence their own governments.
At least two foreign businessmen - Johan Eliasch, a Swedish sportswear tycoon,
and Chinese timber magnate Lu Wei-Guang - have purchased large tracts of the
Amazon in recent years, professing the desire to help cut deforestation and
implement sustainable development.
Authorities in Brazil, however, insist they are tackling the problem, pointing
to a 32% cut in deforestation last year and predicting a further 11% drop next
year.
"We are taking care of Amazonia in accordance with development models based on
the principles of sustainability," the ministers wrote. "[It] is the patrimony
of the Brazilian people and is not for sale."
Brazil is often at the sharp end of criticism from environmentalists, who point
to the destruction of over 132,000 sq km of rainforest since 2000 - razed by
cattle farmers, illegal loggers and soya planters.
Yet officials say developed nations are in fact responsible for the bulk of
greenhouse emissions through their dependency on fossil fuels such as oil and
coal.
Mauro Armelin, political coordinator of WWF Brazil, welcomed the idea of a fund
but warned that the contradiction between agricultural progress and
sustainability was still far from being resolved.
"A clean toilet is not the one you most clean, it is the one you dirty least,"
he said.