Clearing forest for plantation. Image courtesy of Cath Long, Rainforest Foundation UK

In terms of opportunity, there is new global recognition of the role played by the rainforests in both promoting and mitigating climate change.

When the trees are destroyed, their carbon is released into the atmosphere. Carbon emissions from deforestation are some 18% of the whole and greater than the entire global transport sector. Last year Indonesia became the world’s fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide mainly on account of its forest burning.

Conversely, when the trees remain standing they represent a carbon sink second only to the oceans in effectiveness. While we are spending millions of dollars searching for ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere we have this incredibly efficient ‘green machine’ of the tropical rainforests right at the heart of the world.

This critical role of the rainforests in fighting climate change was recognised both at the recent COP-13 UNFCCC in Bali and in the previous Stern Report which pointed out that preserving the rainforests represented one of the most cost effective ways of fighting climate change.

In terms of urgency, worldwide rises in commodity prices and soaring global demand for beef, soya and palm oil have put acute new pressures on the rainforests. For instance the slowing rate of deforestation experienced in Brazil between 2004 and the first half of 2007 has gone sharply into reverse as commodity prices have risen over the past 12 months.

Approximately 240 million of the world’s poor that live in forested areas of developing countries depend on forests for their livelihoods. Forest and its products provide cash income, jobs and consumption goods for poor families. It is critical that solutions for deforestation take into account the needs of these people and provide them with both proper livelihoods and a future.

So there is a new awareness in the world about the need to protect the World’s rainforests and the urgency of action required.

It is into this space that HRH The Prince of Wales has stepped with The Prince’s Rainforests Project.

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