This is an incomplete post salvaged from the internet archive.

-by Alex

During the weeks leading up to the Nairobi Climate negotiations the World Bank (WB) released a new report, At Loggerheads?Agricultural Expansion, Poverty Reduction, and Envirionment in the Tropical Forests, demonstrating that the global value of Carbon storage in existing forests is greater than the economic value of converting them to other uses such as livestock pasture or timber. Katherine Sierra, vice president of sustainable development at the World Bank, stated that “now is the time to reduce pressures on tropical forests through a comprehensive framework that integrates sustainable forest management into the global strategy for mitigating climate change and preserving biodiversity.”

As if it wasn’t enough that deforestation threatens 800,000 people who live in or around vulnerable forests or woodlands, endangers the majority of the worlds remaining terrestrial biodiversity, and degrades and destroys the valuable ecosystems that provide a myriad of essential environmental services, deforestation is a major source of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases contributing to our changing climate.

Today tropical deforestation accounts for approximately 20% of total global emissions of carbon dioxide (3.8 B tons per year), almost twice as much as does global road transportation. Since the 1950’s, 5% of tropical forests have been lost per decade. In just the past five years, over 50 million hectares of tropical forest (about the size of France) have been lost.