Scientists have urged the first world nations to help Third World countries preserve their rainforests.
Poor nations must be rewarded for resisting economic pressure to clear rainforests, they said.Oxford zoologist Andrew Mitchell said the Forests Now declaration by the Global Canopy Programme - a group of 38 scientific institutions in 19 countries have called for implementation of a carbon market policy.
Under this, states and organizations that generate the most carbon dioxide will pay governments to preserve their tropical forests instead of cutting them down for timber, to grow crops or to support livestock.
“This is a declaration of hope. Halting deforestation is an opportunity to score a big win against climate change. These forests support 1.4billion of the world's poorest people and offer services critical to humanity's survival, such as rainfall generation. These are benefits we all need but do not yet pay for,” said Mitchell.
He said the forests contained 60 per cent of the world's stored carbon and although they covered less than seven per cent of the world's surface area they provided a home for half of all known species.
“Deforestation in the tropics and sub-tropics causes up to 25 per cent of carbon emissions, second only to that of fossil fuels,” the Daily Mail quoted Dr Mitchell as saying.
Advertisement
The declaration states that governments should ensure that the need to maintain forests is written into to all international carbon-trading agreements and that carbon-market rules should encourage the planting and development of more forests.
Advertisement
“Yet tropical forests continue to be excluded from carbon markets that could provide the alternative strategies needed”.
Source-ANI
SRM/J
