Greenpeace today launched a landmark proposal for reducing, and ultimately stopping, tropical deforestation.
The initiative was launched at a side event of the Bali Climate Conference, featuring the Governors of Papua and Papua Barat, the provinces with the largest intact tropical forests in Indonesia.
Greenpeace believes that finding solutions to ending deforestation must be a key objective of the conference for the following reasons:
Tropical deforestation accounts for approximately a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than those produced by the world's entire transport sector.
Indonesia and Brazil are the third and fourth largest emitters in the world largely due to deforestation. In order to help prevent dangerous climate change, Greenpeace believes that deforestation should be stopped globally within a decade.
The peat swamp forests of Indonesia alone are responsible for 4 per cent of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating these emissions represents one of the quickest and easiest ways of tackling climate change.
Since 1997 about 13 million hectares of forest (mostly tropical) have been destroyed per year - an area the size of Greece lost every year.
"We want the issue of deforestation to be a central part of the negotiations here in Bali. The world has the resources to stop this problem - what's needed now is the political will. Governors from Papua and Brazil's Amazonas State have shown that they have the desire to do this, the world's governments in Bali must now follow. No money, no forests, no future," said Greenpeace Brazil's Amazon campaign coordinator, Paulo Adario.
The Greenpeace proposal has the potential to raise funding in the range of several billion US$ per year to finance urgent action to cut emissions from deforestation. The proposal would allow industrialised countries like Britain to meet a percentage of their emissions reduction targets through the purchase of "units" from the scheme. Proceeds from the sale of these units would be used to transfer resources between rich countries and poor ones to prevent deforestation.
In Bali, earlier this year, the Governors of the Papua provinces recognised the need to reduce deforestation and called for the "support of the international community through carbon financing mechanisms and transfer of technology to protect our forests and provide income to local communities". (1)
Bill Hare, Greenpeace political advisor on climate change and co-author of the initiative, said: "Our proposal could lead to real deforestation reductions without shifting deforestation from one place to another. It will also make sure that local communities can share the benefits."
Tropical Deforestation and the Kyoto Protocol: www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/...
For a copy of the proposal contact Greenpeace UK Press Office +44 (0) 207 865 8255 or view online.
Christoph Thies, Greenpeace International Forest campaigner +62 (0) 8133 7949712
Martin Baker, Greenpeace International Communications +62 (0) 81337949714
Notes:
(1) Declaration of the Governors of Aceh, Papua and Papua Barat on Climate Change, April 2007
