Brazil has managed to reduce Amazon destruction to about 7,000 square kilometers (2,702 square miles) a year, the lowest level in decades. But that is still larger than the U.S. state of Delaware.
Source: AP
- The Brazilian Amazon is arguably the world's biggest natural defense against global warming, acting as an absorber of carbon dioxide. But it is also a big contributor to warming because about 75 percent of Brazil's emissions come from rainforest clearing, as vegetation burns and felled trees rot.
- Brazil has an incentive to protect the Amazon because the new global climate agreement is expected to reward countries for "avoided deforestation," with cash or credits tradable on the global carbon market.
- Norway is making payments to give Brazil $1 billion by 2015 to preserve the Amazon rain forest, as long as Latin America's largest nation keeps trying to stop deforestation.
- The nation was the first to supply cash to an Amazon preservation fund Brazilian officials hope will raise US$21 billion to protect nature reserves, to persuade loggers and farmers to stop destroying trees and to finance scientific and technological projects.
- Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc has said Japan, Sweden, Germany, South Korea and Switzerland are considering donating to the fund.
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