RAINFORESTS BENEFIT FROM UK GOVERNMENT’S SPENDING REVIEW

Despite widespread cuts, the UK Government's Comprehensive Spending Review managed to find an additional £100 million to fight deforestation and mitigate climate change.

 This funding for forest conservation is just part of the £2.9 billion promised by the UK for climate change projects over the coming 5 years. The Government has targets of halving tropical deforestation over the next 10 years and transforming the world's forestry sector into a carbon neutral industry by 2030.

According to Carloine Spelman, UK Environment Secretary, "tackling deforestation is critical if we are to be successful in our goals to protect biodiversity, tackle climate change and reduce global poverty."

Some of the £100 million is expected to go into funding the UN REDD+ programme which seeks to provide economic compensation to tropical forest country governments, forest owners, indigenous communities and forest concessionaries in return for conserving the stores of carbon in their trees.

Trees are not only stores of carbon, but also absorb more carbon from the atmosphere every year as they grow, making forest conservation arguably the top priority in combating climate change and maintaining high levels of biodiversity.

"Forests are home to over half the world's plants and animals, and support the livelihoods of over one billion people," added Spelman.

"With so much at stake, the UK Government believe's it's time to establish a substantial and longstanding financial comitment to REDD+ to protect the world's forests and the plants and animals that live in them," the Environment Minister contined, announcing the new global forestry funding at the Nagoya UN Biodiversity Summit in Japan this month.

"It's good to see the UK showing commitment of this kind to REDD+ projects around the world," said Matthew Owen, Director of UK charity Cool Earth. "The time is ripe, with many rainforest conservation projects being incubated around the world. We welcome all the help we can get and this is certainly a very positive action in the lead up to the UN Climate Change Summit in Mexico, now only a few weeks away," added Owen.

SOURCES: www.7thspace.com www.guardian.co.uk www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk

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