Norway to give Guyana up to $250M for rainforest conservation

Norway will provide up to $250 million to Guyana as part of the South American country's effort to avoid emissions from deforestation.

Under the terms of the agreement, signed today, Norway will put $30 million into Guyana's "REDD+" development fund. Subsequent payments — up to $250 million in total — would be contingent of Guyana's ability to avoid future deforestation. Guyana's deforestation is presently negligible, but the country has argued that proposed development projects could lead to an increase in logging and conversion for large-scale agriculture and plantations. It says the development fund will be used for sustainable development projects and climate change adaptation measures.

“We want to avoid the high-carbon development trajectory that today’s developed world followed,” said President Bharrat Jagdeo in a statement. "It will be impossible to defeat climate change if we don’t significantly reduce tropical deforestation. We said several years ago that the people of Guyana stood ready to play our part in determining how this can be done. We are delighted to work alongside Norway in searching for solutions that align the development aspirations of our people with the urgent need to protect the world’s tropical forests.”

"Through this partnership, we are building a bridge between developed and developing countries," added Norway's Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim. "We are giving the world a workable model for climate change collaboration between North and South. It’s not perfect, but it's good, and it will be improved upon as we learn and develop together."

United States has higher percentage of forest loss than Brazil

Forests continue to decline worldwide, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Employing satellite imagery researchers found that over a million square kilometers of forest were lost around the world between 2000 and 2005. This represents a 3.1 percent loss of total forest as estimated from 2000. Yet the study reveals some surprises: including the fact that from 2000 to 2005 both the United States and Canada had higher percentages of forest loss than even Brazil.

Counting forest loss due either to human disturbance or natural causes, the study found that North America lost the most forest of the world's six forest-containing continents. Perhaps surprisingly, thirty percent of total forest loss occurred in North America alone. Combined with South America—the largest extent of tropical forests in the world—the two continents represent half of the world's total forest loss. Africa, in turn, suffered the least forest loss.

Reviving the spirit of Rio

In two years' time, Rio de Janeiro will host another Earth Summit - 20 years after the first.

The idea was proposed in 2007 by Brazil's President Lula da Silva at the UN General Assembly.

It was clear to President Lula and to a growing number of others that the world has changed enormously since 1992, when the world agreed to Agenda 21 - the blueprint for creating a sustainable way of life in the 21st Century.

Rio 2012 could provide much-needed new momentum to international co-operation, not only on environment and sustainable development, but also on the problems that underpin the global financial crisis.

Mideast animal trade under fire

BEIRUT - A 2-year-old lion, emaciated and barely breathing, is found in a tiny cage off a Beirut highway. Monkeys are hauled through the dark tunnels of Gaza, bound for private zoos. Rare prize falcons are kept in desert encampments by wealthy Arab sheiks.

The trade in endangered animals is flourishing in the Middle East, fueled by corruption, ineffective legislation and lax law enforcement.

"It's a problem in the Arab world that we can no longer ignore," said Marguerite Shaarawi, co-founder of the animal rights group Animals Lebanon.

The group is pushing for Lebanon to join the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, whose signatories are meeting this month in Qatar. It is the first time the 175-nation convention is meeting in an Arab country.