Understanding "avoided deforestation"
Few would disagree that efforts to protect the world's rainforests from deforestation should be a global priority.
One recent solution is to introduce avoided deforestation strategies to prevent logging, farming and other threats from having a long-term impact on the world's rainforest.
President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, has been one of the main proponents of avoided deforestation, leading discussions at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan in December.
The contention of the president, and a great many scientists, is clear.
"Deforestation causes about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions. That is more than the US or the entire global transport sector," he explained in a speech at the Guyana International Conference Centre earlier that month.
However, with the Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012, many agree with Mr Jagdeo that its replacement in Copenhagen must "create proportional incentives to reduce tropical deforestation".
The threat
A report from the Worldwatch Institute provides the latest catastrophic forecast of the demand for a viable solution to climate change. It claims that a failure to bring carbon dioxide absorption in line with global CO2 emissions by 2050 will pose unacceptable risks.
Robert Engelman, vice president of programmes at the Institute, warned that to achieve such a goal would require "mass public support and worldwide political will".
For rainforest countries this "will" may be even more wanting, because it is their integral farming and logging industries, some illegal, that pose the deforestation threat.
However, the affect of climate change for these communities may also be more acute.
Commenting on the most recent Global Risks 2009 report from the World Economic Forum, Swiss Re's chief risk officer, Raj Singh, claimed that poorer nations will suffer most "because they lack the infrastructure and institutional framework to cope".
Conversely, avoided deforestation strategies appear to provide developing rainforest nations with a role in curbing the impact of climate change.
Deforestation action
There are also growing signs that the link between global warming prevention and avoided deforestation are beginning to hit home.
Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, created a fund in August 2008 seeking donations to help South American countries to protect the rainforest.
Commenting on the announcement, Sergio Leitao, director of public policies for Greenpeace Brazil, said: "This is the first time Brazil is accepting the link between global warming and preserving the forest."
Meanwhile, stronger evidence is emerging about what parts of the rainforest are in need of protection.
Forest science professor at Oregon State University, Beverly Law, is one of the scientists committed to measuring levels of carbon absorption among trees.
"Young, fast growing trees don't capture more carbon than older ones," she told the Associated Press.
"Older forests store huge quantities, and they continue to absorb through age 80."
According to William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, it is older parts of the threatened rainforest that are causing the greatest concern.
Speaking to the Times however, he confirmed another avoided deforestation solution to this problem.
"There's some suggestion now that it is partly offset by the regeneration of secondary forest," he said.
However, Smithsonian Institute research from 2008 indicates that there is still work to be done, with rarer and older rainforest trees facing extinction rates of up to 50 per cent.
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