Summary:
Brazil’s development bank BNDES has announced the first five recipients of grants under the South American country’s ambitious Amazon Fund, which aims to reduce deforestation by 70 percent over the next decade.
The recipients include US$ 11 million for the Bolsa Floresta program, which compensates forest communities in the state of Amazonas for avoiding deforestation; Imazon (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia), which will receive $5.5 million to create an environmental land registry and monitoring capabilities in the state of Pará; TNC Brasil, which will get $9.1 million to encourage wood producers, cattle ranchers and soy farmers in Pará and Mato Grosso to sign up for a land registry that promotes environmental stewardship; the Projeto Sementes do Portal; which will receive $3.1 million to develop reforestation projects on degraded lands in Mato Grosso; and the Fundo Brasileiro para a Biodiversidade, which will get $11.5 million to support the second phase of the Arpa Program responsible for establishing new protecting areas.
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All together some $40 million will be allocated to the initiatives, or just over a third of the $110 million of the money raised from Norway for the Amazon Fund in 2009. Norway has committed 750 million krone (about US$ 125 million) for 2010 and up to one billion by 2016.
The Amazon Fund represents Brazil’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation. As the world’s top deforester over the past decade, forest loss accounts for more than 60 percent of Brazil’s total CO2 emissions.
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The Amazon Fund, which aims to raise more than $20 billion from foreign donors over the next decade — will target investments in forest protection and efforts to sustainably use forest resources. The fund will support sustainable forest management, land-use planning and land-title regularization, reforestation and forest recovery, environmental monitoring, the development of sustainable industries, and establishment of new protected areas. 20 percent of the funds have been ear-marked for developing systems to monitor and control deforestation outside the Brazilian Amazon, including other ecosystems within Brazil and other countries.
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