New UN-sponsored project seeks to rescue Amazon from deforestation

[mom cat]

Published: Monday, June 27, 2005
Bylined to: UN News Center

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=39253

New UN-sponsored project seeks to rescue Amazon from deforestation

UN News Center: With the environment of the Amazon Basin increasingly under siege from deforestation, mining, urbanization and other land use changes, the United Nations is co-sponsoring a new project to conserve and better manage the eight-nation region’s economically important waters, forests and wildlife.

Pollution hot spots and damaged habitats and ‘ecosystems’ are to be identified and measures drawn up to reduce the threats and restore the damage under the scheme, which UN Environment Program (UNEP) Executive Director Klaus Toepfer says will play an important part in helping the region meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

These internationally-agreed goals cover issues such as poverty reduction and reversing the spread of diseases like malaria to the empowerment of women and the provision of safe and sufficient quantities of drinking water.

The new Amazon project, announced over the weekend at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Third Biennial International Waters Conference in Salvador Bahia, Brazil, is being implemented by UNEP/GEF and is being undertaken by the Organization of American States with the Organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty as the regional body. The nearly two year project will cost just under US$1.5 million.

[Peace Patriot]

1. I would like to know how much of that money (if any) is going to

Precious Woods Amazon (Swiss-German investment) and the Forest Stewardship Council, to log VIRGIN FORESTS in the Amazon under the phony FSC-certified wood program. I'm just a little suspicious.

[mom cat]

2. Thanks for the tip. I needed my optimism tempered a bit.

[Mr.Green93]

3. Brazil has a Socialist leader and government

shouldn't they have control of their resources? Are they not to be trusted? This just seems like paternalism.

[mom cat]

5. The Amazon could turn into another Sahara. I don't believe Brazil

has the resources to stop all of the deforestation within its borders without massive international help. I don't know if this is the answer, but climate change predictions show the probability of dramatic drying and heating of the rain forest.

[roguevalley]

4. I wish they would do something. This breaks my heart.