Britain and Norway created a £108 million (US$210.7 million) fund on Tuesday to help save the world’s second-largest rainforest, central Africa’s Congo Basin, with the help of satellite imaging technology.
The fund is intended to provide African governments and people living in the rainforest with a viable alternative to logging and mining. The Congo rainforest is about twice the size of France, but is dwindling at a rate equal to 25,000 soccer fields a week.
MONITORED FROM ABOVE
Projects will be eligible for funds if they can demonstrate they can curb the destruction of forest by providing alternative sources of income or energy, for example.
Their effectiveness will be monitored from above by high-definition cameras, which are to be mounted on satellites and launched into space in the next two years.
“We are pledging to work together to secure the future of one of the world’s last remaining ancient forests,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at the scheme’s launch yesterday.
Britain initiated the fund and is providing £58 million.
“Preserving our forests is vital if we are going to reduce global emissions,” Brown said.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose government is putting £50 million into the scheme over three years, as part of a broader £300 million a year forest initiative, said the money spent was the most immediate and cost-effective way to combat greenhouse gas emissions.
COST EFFICIENT
The estimated cost of reducing emissions through stopping deforestation is £3 per tonne of carbon dioxide, compared with between £50 and £100 per tonne for carbon capture schemes.
British and Norwegian officials said the biggest challenge would be ensuring that the money is effectively spent. The Congo rainforest sprawls across Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Across large swaths, particularly in the DRC, corruption is rife, while mining and logging companies are prepared to offer large rewards to communities and regional authorities to open up their forests.
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