Там где дух свободы - The Prince's Rainforests Project

Even though tropical forests seem a long way away from most of us, they play a vital role in all our lives, every day.

In fact, rainforests are essential for the wellbeing of everyone, because they are the world’s natural air-conditioning and thermostat systems. They act as the cooling belt around the centre of our planet and they generate much of the rainfall that is essential around the world for producing food to meet the demands of our growing global population.

Rainforests are also undeniably linked to our ability to prevent catastrophic climate change, and that is why His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales established his Rainforests Project.

Widespread destruction of a precious resource
Tropical forests absorb nearly a fifth of all man-made CO2 emissions around the world. This greatly helps to minimise the effects of climate change. However, these same rainforests are currently being destroyed at the rate of an area the size of a football pitch every four seconds.

To make matters worse, when the rainforests are burnt down – to clear land for commercial farming or mining, for example – they release all the CO2 that they have stored back into the atmosphere.

The alarming scale of this rapid burning of the rainforests around the world means that the annual level of CO2 emissions created by tropical deforestation is actually greater than that produced by the entire global transport network.

It is for this reason that The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) has the clear ambition to ‘Make the trees worth more alive than dead’.

Encouraging international action
We are working with governments, businesses and non-profit organisations around the world to find solutions to deforestation - and to find them fast.

In particular, we have identified the need for an Emergency Package of funding for rainforest nations to help protect the rainforests.

Background to The Prince’s Rainforests Project
The Prince of Wales has long been concerned about climate change and about how destruction of the world’s rainforests contributes to rising temperatures and sea levels.

He set up The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) in 2007, following reports from leading climate change experts - including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - about the need to find a way to slow the rate of tropical deforestation.

Since then, we have worked hard to understand the economic reasons for deforestation in rainforest nations. We wanted to find a fair and effective way to encourage rainforest nations to protect, rather than destroy, their forests - and to identify ways to fund that approach.

Objectives of The Prince’s Rainforests Project
All of the PRP’s work to date has been focused on two very specific aims. The first is to raise awareness of the damaging effects for everyone of deforestation. The second is to identify appropriate incentives that will encourage rainforest nations to stop burning down vast areas of valuable trees.

We have worked closely with senior politicians and business leaders, as well as non-profit organisations and other interested parties, from rainforest nations and developed countries alike. Our team has also studied programmes being developed by other organisations to address the global problem of tropical deforestation.

”If deforestation can be stopped in its tracks, then we will be able to buy ourselves some much-needed time to build the low carbon economies on which our futures depend. I have endeavoured to create a global public, private and NGO partnership to discover an innovative means of halting tropical deforestation. Success would literally transform the situation for our children and grandchildren and for every species on the planet.” - HRH The Prince of Wales

The PRP proposal
The PRP has developed a proposal for emergency funding to help protect rainforests and to encourage rainforest nations to continue to develop without the need for deforestation.

For rainforest nations to be persuaded that ‘trees are worth more alive than dead,’ there need to be appropriate incentives that will motivate them to move away from deforestation in favour of more environmentally friendly economic development activity.

Why are we proposing this emergency funding? Because we believe that helping rainforest nations in this way will lead to a relatively fast and certainly significant reduction in tropical deforestation – which will ultimately help everyone, everywhere.

This Emergency Package will also fill the current funding gap that exists before the money to be raised under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations is available to rainforest nations at scale.

Gathering top level support for our proposal
On 1st April 2009, The Prince of Wales hosted an historic meeting of world leaders, who came together to discuss possible ways to reduce tropical deforestation. This meeting was attended by the President of the European Commission, three of the European leaders (Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy), three British cabinet ministers, Hillary Clinton, Kevin Rudd, leaders or senior cabinet ministers of four rainforest nations – Brazil, Indonesia, Gabon and Guyana, the Prime Minister of Norway, Prime Minister of Japan, Secretary-General of the UN and President of the World Bank.

They agreed to form an international Working Group to consider the issue. This Working Group will study the PRP proposal, along with other suggestions from governments and international organisations, before making recommendations for a co-ordinated, global plan of action ahead of the international climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

Throughout this year, we are continuing to work with a wide range of businesses and organisations to refine our ideas, to continue to build awareness of the urgent need for action, and to support the activities of the Working Group.

By starting to agree the key elements of this Emergency Package of funding now, we hope to be able to support and shape worldwide discussion of the dangers of tropical deforestation in the run-up to the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen in December 2009. This would mean that a plan for emergency action could start to be rolled out early next year.

Spreading the message around the world
The PRP has also launched a global awareness campaign to improve understanding of the link between rainforests and climate change and the need for urgent action to stop deforestation.

Destruction of the rainforests has very real and very serious consequences for us all - today and tomorrow. To protect ourselves and our future generations, we must take urgent action against tropical deforestation.

So do your bit and sign up to show your support today! It only takes a moment to help us to spread the message around the world…

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