UN Launches Plan To Save Tropical Forests

Treevolution:

The United Nations launched a programme this week to help nine developing countries - among them three African states, Zambia, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo - to establish systems to monitor, assess and report their forest cover. The programme could lay the foundation for a system whereby poor countries could earn tradable carbon credits for protecting their forests. Indonesia, for example, has the potential to be compensated $1-billion a year for reducing its rate of deforestation, the UN estimates.

Deforestation accounts for 20 percent of global carbon emissions, say scientists. If the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Programme, or UN-REDD, were to be incorporated into a post-Kyoto climate deal it would be a way rich countries would pay poor ones to slow climate change. Other countries in the programme are Bolivia, Indonesia, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Viet Nam.

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Comments

[noneIn2008]

They clear the land to grow biofuels.

[isis]

Good idea.

[Sneaky]

Awesome. Carbon credits rock! If Al Gore buys 'em (even if it's from a company he set up), they MUST be good!

[Gasparilla]

All totally useless if we do not address overpopulation, in this country and around the world. A lot of the areas "set aside" in some of these countries still get abused with illegal logging and farming. In this country we can address the number one cause of overpopulation. That would be immigration, legal and illegal. We're looking at a population of over 400 million by 2050, mainly due to immigration. And most of the environmental groups like the Sierra Club are too afraid to admit it.

[Exusian]

And halting immigration into the US would do what, exactly, to prevent tropical deforestation?

[Gasparilla]

I didn't say it would. I said "in this country" we can address overpopulation by addressing immigration. I also said we need to address overpopulation "around the world" to address the issue of tropical deforestation. I thought I was pretty clear.

[Exusian]

"I said "in this country" we can address overpopulation by addressing immigratio­n."

How so? Besides the fact that the US can hardly be described as overpopulated, people moving from one nation to another nation does not alter world population one iota, it's just people moving around. In fact, people moving from a densely populated nation to a less dense one would reduce population stress on the environment in the densely populated nation, although, as mouselion pointed out, the energy footprint of emigrants to the US would go up dramtically.