Norway
donated US$ 110 million to the Brazilian
government's Amazon Fund on March 25. This
is the first donation to be received by
the Fund. Germany has already committed
to donating another US$ 18 million. The
money will go towards sustainable development
and conservation initiatives in the Amazon
Forest, in a new effort to halt deforestation
and environmental degradation in the region.
By June, Brazil´s
Development Bank (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Econômico e Social/BNDES), in charge
of fund management, will have started receiving
proposal letters from NGOs, companies and
federal, municipal or state governments
interested in carrying out conservation
initiatives focused on reducing CO2 emissions.
All initiatives must be in accordance with
the Brazilian government's Action Plan for
the Prevention and Control the Deforestation
of the Legal Amazon (Plano de Prevenção
de Combate ao Desmatamento na Amazônia/PPCDAM)
and Sustainable Amazon Plan (PAS). Funds
applied will not be reimbursed, however
- except in cases in which pré-established
goals are provenly not reached. Fund application
will be supervised during all phases of
project implementation.
Proposals will be analyzed
by the Bank and, if approved, returned to
proponents for detailing of technical and
managerial aspects. Examples of projects
eligible for grants from the Fund are management
of forests and protected areas, ecological
and economic zoning, conservation and sustainable
use, monitoring and payment for environmental
services.
The Brazilian Ministry
of the Environment (MMA) participates in
the Fund through a Technical Committee.
MMA projects will be submitted to BNDES
analysis in equal terms and conditions.
Rules for approval of proposals were defined
when the Fund was created, and viability
analysis is carried out by the bank.
Fundraising is based
on reductions in deforestation: whenever
Brazil proves it has reduced degraded areas,
implying in a reduction of CO2 emissions,
it is eligible for carbon credits, according
to international prices. Thus, the 200 million
tonnes of CO2 corresponding to the 1996-2005
period mean a donation of up to U$ 1 billion;
the remittance of US$ 128 million were guaranteed
this week.
According to Brazilian minister of the Environment
Carlos Minc, three other countries are willing
to donate to the Fund - but he would rather
not say who, yet, "so as not to influence
negotations".
Minc assured Norwegian
ambassadress Turid Euzebio - who signed
the donation agreement on behalf of Norway
- that "every cent will be applied
in defense of the forest and in defense
of the Earth".
The minister said the
Norwegian donation was both generous and
an example to other countries - recalling
that Norway has always sought to invest
in initiatives focused on indigenous peoples
and the environment in foreign countries.
According to ambassadress
Euzebio, the Congo and Tanzania, amongst
others, have also received funds from Norway
for the conservation of ther tropical rainforests.
BNDES president Luciano
Coutinho, on the other hand, saod the bank
will launch a site for the Amazon Fund,
so as to afford "transparency"
to anything which refers to Amazon Fund
fundraising and application.
Combatting deforestation
- The Amazon Fund is an unprecedented mechanism
presented by Brazil at the United Nations
Climate Change Conference held in Bali in
2008. Donations can be made by governments,
companies and individuals who are committed
to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation.
It is the first time
the struggle against deforestation includes
a series of encompassing initiatives for
promoting sustainable development in the
Amazon.
Annual deforestation
indexes used for calculating reductions
in emissions will be compared, every year,
to average 10-year deforestation indexes.
+ More
Macrozoning of the Amazon
will be ready by end of the year, says Minc
Brazilian minister of
the Environment Carlos Minc said, on March
26, that the Ministry of the Environment
(MMA) will conclude the ecological and economic
macrozoning (ZEE) of the Amazon until the
end of this year. According to the minister,
this is Brazil's most important instrument
in establishing a frontier of legality in
the region and in planning its sustainable
development.
During a meeting between
the Consórcio ZEE Brasil (made up
of institutions in charge of carrying out
zoning) with the region's state government
representatives, Minc requested that a special
effort be made to complete state ZEEs and
to ellaborate macrozoning. The latter's
challenge is to bring together regional
documents whilst conciliating interests,
dissolving conflicts and helping build national
and regional strategies.
"We are going to
complete the ecological and economic macrozoning
of the Amazon by the end of this year",
said the minister. "This will lead
the Amazon to a new stage of development
and dignity for the 25 million people who
live there and are entitled to comfort,
to feeding their families and to being exempt
from the rôle of forest destruction
and global warming villains."
The seminar was summoned
for evaluation of each of the Amazon states'
status quo as to their ZEEs; for identifying
obstacles and difficulties; and for establishing
how the latter should be effectively and
swiftly overcome.
The state of Maranhão,
for example, will receive technical and
financial support so as to ellaborate its
ZEE. Amapá's process is underway;
and Tocantins already has its agro-ecological
zoning. Pará's macrozoning, on the
other hand, is ready - but the state prefers
to carry out other more specific ZEEs. The
states of Rondônia, Acre and Roraima
have completed their ZEEs and are using
them; Mato Grosso and Amazonas await ruling
by Brazilian Parliament.
According to Roberto
Vizentin, director of the Ministry's Department
of Ecological and Economic Zoning (Departamento
de Zoneamento Territorial/MMA), it is possible
to conclude macrozoning of the Amazon even
before state zoning is complete.
"It can be done,
although it's not really advisable",
said Vizentin. "Strictly speaking,
the process should have begun from macrozoning
- which would then offer directives for
state zoning. But, for historical reasons,
this did not occur. Now we are going in
the opposite direction, starting off from
the specific so as to encompass Amazon as
a whole. To do so, it would be preferable
to have these specific parts in hand."
Amazon Fund - During
the meeting, minister Minc evaluated MMA's
recent initiatives in the region. He said
that, due to a series of initiatives - such
as the Operation Arc of Fire and the Amazon
Fund, which recently received a donation
of US$ 110 million from Norway -, deforestation
in the Amazon has been considerably reduced
in the last few months.
+ More
Meeting in London strengthens
Amazon Fund's role
03/04/2009 - This week,
taking advantage of the opportunity provided
by the G20 summit in London, Prince Charles
- also head of the Prince's Rainforest Project
- summoned a meeting with leaders of the
world's largest economies to discuss solutions
to halt the deforestation of rainforests
across the world.
The meeting was attended
by French president Nicolas Sarkozy; Indonesian
president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; US secretary
of state Hilary Clinton; Italian prime minister
Silvio Berlusconi; German Chancellor Angela
Merkel; European Commission president Jose
Manuel Barroso; World Bank president Robert
Zoellick; and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon,
amongst others. Brazil was represented by
chanceler Celso Amorim and the general director
of the Brazilian Forest Service (Serviço
Florestal Brasileiro/SFB), Tasso Azevedo.
At the St James' Palace
meeting in London, Charles announced the
results of an 18-month study focused on
finding a way to channel funds to protect
forests as part of the fight against climate
change. The prince urged leaders to support
an "emergency package" to save
forests by diverting up to US$ 15 billion
every year, from 2010 to 2020, to tropical
nations such as Brazil and Indonesia. Donor
nations would be asked to commit to long-term
funding, money could be held and allocated
by a new global body - and tropical countries
would be free to choose how to spend it.
In a foreword to the
report setting out the project's findings,
Prince Charles said: "If deforestation
can be stopped in its tracks, then we will
be able to buy ourselves some much needed
time to build the low-carbon economies on
which our futures depend. If we fail, global
warming will occur faster and more dramatically...
Knowing this I felt I should do all in my
power to help find some kind of solution".
The project suggests
rainforest nations could sign up to five-year
contracts under which they would commit
to reducing deforestation to agreed levels
- and would then receive annual payments
in return. But the money would only be paid
if satellite pictures confirmed that trees
were being protected as promised. It says:
"This would be a businesslike arrangement,
a service contract under which the world
pays rainforest nations for delivery of
ecosystem services, rather than providing
aid in a traditional way".
World leaders agreed
to establish an international working group
to present a model for the idea until next
July. The goal is to find a model which
everyone agrees upon before the COP 15 (United
Nations Climate Change Conference) to be
held from December 7 to 18, in Copenhagen.
According to Brazilian
Forest Service Tasso Azevedo, the high-level
meeting proved that we have managed, once
and for all, to include forests and their
sustainable use in discussions leading to
the Climate Change Conference .
Minc - In Brazil, minister
of the Environment Carlos Minc said today
(April 2) he considered the discussion around
the idea of creating an international mechanism
"positive and emblematic", and
that it revealed the Brazilian Amazon Fund's
potencial for attracting funds for projects
in the world's largest rainforest.
"We must be like
a showroom to the world - offering projects
focused on recuperating degraded areas and
on promoting payment for environmental services,
for example", he said. Minc also mentioned
that Brazil was the first country (post-Kyoto)
to establish a legal way of drawing in funds
for forest conservation.
