Faced with the global challenge of ending the deforestation of tropical forests without enough resources for the task, at the end of 2023, the Brazilian government launched a mechanism to encourage forest conservation. How? Creating a payment system per hectare of preserved or recovered forest to those responsible for its preservation. If a hectare ends up deforested instead of preserved, the opposite happens: Landowners no longer receive the equivalent of 100 times the value of the preserved hectare. “Tropical forests are essential for biodiversity,” Minister of Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva said at the launch of the mechanism at COP28, in the United Arab Emirates. “They are a great repository of countless species and responsible for water balance. We need mechanisms to protect them. In addition to laws, efforts and incentives within each national state, it is essential to have a global payment mechanism for the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests. Around 80 countries that have tropical forests, including vulnerable ones, [must be] paid for each hectare of forest preserved and for each hectare of forest restored,” Silva said. Tasso Azevedo, creator of the Amazon Fund and MapBiomas, an annual land cover and land use mapping system, believes that it is essential to create a global payment mechanism for the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests. Image courtesy of MapBiomas Brasil. The Brazilian government estimates $250 billion is needed to launch the initiative, especially from sovereign wealth funds. “Why do we talk about sovereign wealth funds? Worldwide, sovereign…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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