Environmentalists have called Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s commitments on reducing deforestation and supporting renewable energy ‘weak’ and representing little more than maintaining the status quo. Greenpeace Brazil say the target of restoring 12 million hectares of forest represents only half of the reforestation requirements under Brazil’s Forest Code and are just another commitment to comply with existing laws, not a bold new initiative.
Brazil has, however, worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than any large country over the past decade, with emissions from all sectors having fallen by around 40% since 2005, with an 85% cut in carbon dioxide from deforestation.

Sir Jonathon Porritt, a leading environmentalist and adviser to the Prince of Wales, has suggested that poor countries should be allowed to chop down half of their forests as long as the agreed to the preservation of those containing the greatest volume of carbon. As chairman of the palm oil industry-funded High Carbon Stock Study, Sir Jonathon’s suggestion comes in response to trying to determine which forests contain the most carbon and should therefore be protected because clearing would result in massive greenhouse gas emissions. Sir Jonathon told the Times “It’s trade-off time. You can’t develop a new palm oil business in West Africa if you don’t cut down a tree. So the real story now is what kind of deforestation is acceptable within an understanding of the need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases but secure real economic benefits for people in poor countries.” The following article by the Guardian Why zero deforestation is compatible with a reduction in poverty (8th September) explores the difficult choices that companies and countries have to make around the complex question of sustainability.

The Rainforest Alliance has agreed to conduct an audit of Asia Pulp and Paper’s progress in implementing the the zero deforestation policy the forest giant signed last year. The organisation will evaluate APP’s progress in meeting four commitments in its forest conservation policy including protecting high conservation value areas and high carbon stock forests, managing peatlands to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and obtaining free, prior informed consent from local communities before developing new plantations.