The Peruvian government said that deforestation in the country which hosts the fourth area of rainforest in the world after Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, could be reduced to zero in ten years with funds from Western governments.
This ambitious proposal will be submitted in the last round of United Nations conference on climate change taking place in Poznan, Poland.
According to the government, over 80% of the major forests of Peru could be protected and saved (the Amazon forest covers about 70 million hectares, representing approximately 60% of Peruvian territory).
“We are not a poor country that goes to the conference in Poznan to beg,” he told the BBC the Minister for Environment of Peru, Antonio Brack, and added: “We’re an important country with vast and valuable forest land.”
According to Brack, his ministry estimated that Peru needs about U.S. $ 25 million a year over the next decade to preserve and save at least 54 million hectares of jungle, a figure that could rise to $ 60 million.
He also reported that the Peruvian government already devotes $ 5 billion dollars annually to the conservation of the Amazon forest and it proposes to raise $ 20 million annually from the international community.
“That’s how Peru helps mitigate climate change,” said Brack.
The figures offered by the government suggest that in 2005 Peru lost 150,000 hectares of forest, while others say the total could rise to 250,000 hectares annually.
The loss of forest area is much higher in Brazil, which in recent weeks offered data indicating that 12 million hectares of tropical forest disappear each year.
Tropical deforestation is the cause of 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. Peru for less than 1% of global emissions, but according to the Protection Fund for Nature (WWF), half of the greenhouse gas emissions in Peru is due to deforestation.
According to Brack, Germany has already pledged to donate about $ 5 million to the preservation of existing parks, while the Netherlands is interested in funding for forest land to indigenous groups. The minister also hopes to receive funds from Finland, United Kingdom and Japan.
WWF Peru was proposed as a statement of good intentions, but said that there are serious obstacles to the plan of “zero deforestation” is a reality.
Fred Prins, spokesman for the fund, said that the protection of those 54 million acres is not as guaranteed as it seems.
According to Prins, in ten years to ensure the realization of plans of “Zero Deforestation is a very ambitious project, taking into account agricultural expansion, continuous movements, projects for plantation and bio-fuels, and the effects of construction new roads.
Some skeptics have expressed doubts how a government can ensure that indigenous groups benefit from these programs without the funds end up in the hands of corrupt officials.
Brack said that we need a comprehensive communication with indigenous groups, but admitted that there are divisions among the organizations that represent whether or not to enter into negotiations with the government.
Other Latin American countries have launched similar initiatives on the eve of the Poznan conference.
Brazil, for example, announced this week that a plan with the support of international funds, aims to reduce deforestation by 70% over the next ten years. Brazil opened a special fund for the Amazon for other countries to contribute more than U.S. $ 20,000 million in 2021 at the latest.
Also this week, the Mexican government said it intended to create a “Green Fund” to contribute to international environmental programs in poor countries.
Ecuador, which has a high rate of deforestation, wants to avoid the exploration of potential oil reserves in a natural park and therefore seeking alternative financing for avoided deforestation.
Some critics have commented that especially in times of global economic recession, the aid donated by Western governments will not be enough to cause a significant impact on tropical deforestation.
Peru, with a great diversity of Amazonian species, is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The rapid melting of glaciers in the Andes mountains will be, according to some scientists, a serious threat to water supplies to coastal cities during the dry season.
The environment ministry has been in operation only since May this year. Its creation was attributed largely to conditions imposed by United States in exchange for signing the Free Trade Agreement.
Brack acknowledged that his ministry has to find solutions for many environmental problems.
The minister responsible for much of the deforestation of the Andean farmers who migrate to the Amazon lands. The blame also lies, as Brack on building new roads and the extraction of gold.
But Brack will diminish the significance of the effects on deforestation of the many companies that extract oil and gas, which only gives the felling of a small jungle.
Environment Minister of Peru will also raise money to fund a strict body comprising 3000 police officers to stop deforestation in the most remote regions of the country.
