Forest protection efforts face crime, corruption perils

Cutting down forests around the world accounts for close to 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. So getting right a U.N. effort to pay forest nations to keep their trees intact is important to limiting climate change.

But the road to a functioning REDD - the United Nations' programme of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries - is a perilous one, experts said at climate change talks in Barcelona.

Organised crime is already eyeing the billions of dollars that may trade hands under the scheme, said Rosalind Reeve, an environmental law specialist with London's Chatham House think tank and forest campaign manager for Global Witness, an organisation that investigates natural resource-based corruption and conflict.

What Ever Happened to the Amazon Rain Forest?

We didn't save it, but we haven't stopped trying. Environmentalists fret over the fate of the Amazon for good reason: It contains more than half of the planet's remaining tropical rainforest, one-fifth of our global freshwater, and as much as one-third of the world's biodiversity. Saving all this was once a rallying cry for green activists, and a few early triumphs made that goal seem likely. But attention soon shifted away from the rainforest to issues like climate change and organic agriculture, and now the Amazon is disappearing at about the same rate it was in the 1980s.

Government decree sanctions trafficking of rainforest timber in Madagascar

A new decree by Madagascar's transitional government may fuel continued destruction of the country's tropical forests and biodiversity, warns a statement issued jointly by a dozen leading scientific and conservation groups.

The decree, issued by Andry Rajoelina, a politician who seized the presidency during a March military coup, allows the export of hardoods illegally harvested from Madagascar's national parks during the political crisis. The timber, much of which was cut from Marojejy and Masoala national parks, was previously banned from export following international outcry over the destruction of protected areas as well as the accompanying commercial bushmeat poaching of endangered lemurs and other wildlife.

Consequences of Deforestation

Rainforests around the world still continue to fall. Does it really make a difference? Why should anyone care if some plants, animals, mushrooms, and microorganisms perish? Rainforests are often hot and humid, difficult to reach, insect-ridden, and have elusive wildlife.

Actually the concern should not be about losing a few plants and animals; mankind stands to lose much more. By destroying the tropical forests, we risk our own quality of life, gamble with the stability of climate and local weather, threaten the existence of other species, and undermine the valuable services provided by biological diversity.