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09/17/2008 08:06 AM

Norway To Give $1B To Brazil's Deforestation Fund

SustainableBusiness.com News

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday his nation will give Brazil $1 billion by 2015, if it is able to reduce deforestation of its Amazon rain forest. 

Norway is the first country to commit significant funds to reducing deforestation as part of a larger battle against global climate change.

Last month Brazil created a fund in the hopes of raising $21 billion to help it protect forests against logging and the spread of agriculture, which is estimated to claim an area of forest the size of one-and-a-half football fields every minute.

Norway will give Brazil $21 million this year and $210 million next year. But the Scandanavian nation said it would only donate the full $1 billion if Brazil is able to demonstrate a reduction in deforestation.

Stoltenberg said Norway will develop a system for tracking deforestation in addition to Brazil's annual statistics.

According to reports, Germany and two other unnamed countries also intend to donate to Brazil's fund.

To date, an area of the Amazon equal in size to Western Europe has been stripped of its forests, which help to reduce global warming by removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air.

Read the full Associated Press report.