Seeing REDD in the Amazon: a win for people, trees and climate

Opinion paper
, 2 pages
PDF (196.69 KB)
17052IIED.pdf
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Published: March 2009
Area(s):
Sustainable Development Opinion Papers
Product code:17052IIED

Tucked away in a tangle of Brazilian rainforest, a quiet evolution is unfolding. In Amazonas, the country’s biggest state, people are using an approach called REDD to conserve their forests in
return for credit. This project’s success has huge implications for reducing deforestation, cutting emissions and eradicating poverty, and its time has definitely come. Between 1990 and 2005,
over a million square kilometres of forest were lost in the tropics. Half that was in the Amazon. Deforestation accounts for over 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, so a curb on
felling is key to successfully mitigating climate change. But the Amazon is prey to unsustainable development, and the costs of inaction and laissez-faire are higher than those of stopping
deforestation. REDD is the most promising solution yet for this volatile mix of issues.

Cite this publication

Viana, V. (2009). Seeing REDD in the Amazon: a win for people, trees and climate. .
Available at https://www.iied.org/17052iied