Monthly Newsletter - August 2008

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an executive decree the last week of July, launching an international fund to halt deforestation and finance sustainable development in the Amazon. The news came along the first week of August as Lula announced the first pledge to the fund: $100 million from the Norwegian government.

The fund seeks to protect the Amazon rainforest and river basin, which is the largest in the world. The Amazon is a fragile and threatened ecosystem that relies heavily on a strict balance in the environment. Home to 1 out of 10 species known in the world, as well as the source of one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, the Amazon is a global resource that needs to be protected. The Amazon extends over nine South American nations, with Brazil and Peru having the greatest percentage of the rainforest within their territories. As these nations incorporate themselves into the global economy, unsustainable practices such as deforestation threaten to destroy the Amazon at an alarming rate.

The new fund will support forest conservation, alternatives to rainforest destruction, scientific research and sustainable development projects in the search of the protection of the Amazon.
“We are conscious of what the Amazon represents for the world,” Lula said during an inauguration ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. Other countries “talk as if they own the Amazon, but we know what it represents to humanity and to Brazil. And what needs to be done will be done,” stated Lula.

The goal is to raise $1 billion this year and up to $21 billion by 2012, according to Brazil National Development Bank (BNDES), which will manage the fund. The fund will be subsidized by donations from mainly industrialized countries which care for the preservation of the Amazon; it will be open to companies and non-governmental organizations as well.

The creation of the fund is in response to the deforestation figures released by the Brazilian government recently, which proved to be unprecedented. The move was accompanied by tougher environmental enforcement laws in the Amazon aimed at cutting down the rates of illegal logging.

If you are interested in all that the Amazon has to offer, experience its abundant natural beauty for yourself in Brazil with our Special Tour Package and tour of Manaus, or with tours of the Peruvian Amazon.

by Adriana Quirós

Source:
Al Jazeera Americas
BBC Americas
Carbon Positive
Reuters
The Press Association
USA Today
Wikipedia
World Wildlife Fund

PAST NEWSLETTERS:

• Newsletter July 2008
• Newsletter June 2008
• Newsletter May 2008
• Newsletter April 2008
• Newsletter February 2008
• Newsletter January 2008