Give Britain a rainforest for Christmas, says Cool Earth co-founder

04/12/2007

Gordon Brown should respond immediately to the President of Guyana's suggestion that the West should pay to prevent the destruction of his country's rain forest. Frank Field, co-founder of Cool Earth, along with Johan Eliasch, has written to the Prime Minister suggesting that he acts so as to give the UK taxpayers a Christmas Present in the form of safeguarding these huge tracts of rain forest. The letter also suggests that not only would this be a Christmas present to the world, but would challenge Western countries to begin immediately compensating rain forest countries for the environmental services those forests provide for the whole world.

Matthew Owen, Cool Earth's director, points to the £800m Environmental Transformation Fund the Government has recently created and suggests that monies from this sum should be released immediately as the first of annual payments to Guyana to protect the integrity of their rain forest. Sir Nicholas Stern, one of Cool Earth's backers, has again re-emphasised that tackling rain forest destruction is one of the single most effective ways of reducing global CO₂ emissions.

Cool Earth's proposal is that Gordon Brown should set a co-ordinated response from Western nations which will begin by securing Guyana's rain forest. This strategy could then be rolled out to cover other rain forest nations who are anxious to be compensated for the role rain forests perform in mediating the world's weather as well as CO₂ emissions. Matthew Owen added that to seize the initiative here would allow the Prime Minister to begin setting a new international agenda.

Link to the Independent news story