(Bloomberg) -- Brazil plans to seek financial compensation for its work to slow deforestation in the Amazon, part of the country's strategy to reduce carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement.
After doubling spending on efforts to limit deforestation to 120 million reais ($36.6 million) this year, the nation plans to raise the issue at the annual United Nations conference on climate change that starts Nov. 6 in Bonn.
The rapid loss of trees in Brazil and other nations is an important factor in climate change. However, curbing logging and clear-cutting also has an impact on forestry, agriculture and other industries. While much of the international discussions to date have focused on the need to protect forests, Environment Minister Jose Sarney Filho said envoys at the UN meeting should also develop ways to compensate countries for potential economic losses from shielding these areas from development.
“We shouldn't only talk about who cut down trees,” Sarney Filho said during a conference call with journalists Monday. “We also need to reward those who use their properties for preservation. The standing forest should have more value than the one destroyed.”
Brazil plans to propose the amount it believes land owners, municipalities and conservation units should receive for protecting the forests at the meeting in Bonn. The country will press for ways to return the money to the Amazon region, intending to set a precedent for how other nations could be compensated.
‘Vigorous' Effort
After the landmark Paris accord was signed in 2015, the meeting in Bonn is meant to assess nations' progress in meeting their individual commitments to reduce emissions. Brazil has pledged to reduce emissions 37 percent by 2025, by boosting its use of clean energy and reducing deforestation. While U.S. President Donald Trump has said the world's second-biggest emitter will exit the pact, Brazil will maintain a “vigorous” effort to reach its targets and will present a national strategy next year, Sarney Filho said.
Brazil lost about about 6,624 square-kilometers (2,560 square-miles) of trees from August 2016 to July 2017, Sarney Filho said. That's down 16 percent from the same period a year earlier, and a reversal from 2016 when deforestation increased by 29 percent.
The country has set a goal to stop cutting down forests entirely in 2030. It will be tough to make that happen without financial compensation, Sarney Filho said. Land owners in the Amazon, for example, can only use 20 percent of their properties for economic purposes and are questioning how they will be paid for maintaining protected areas.
The government's ability to manage resources for “combating deforestation is reaching its limits,” he said. “If we don't demonstrate that forest-maintenance services should be paid, we'll have trouble.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Vanessa Dezem in Sao Paulo at vdezem@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Joe Ryan
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