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Showing posts from September, 2014

The End of Deforestation

I like Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General.   He doesn’t just talk about doing things; he makes things happen.   I refer specifically to a new collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).   These two organizations intend to restore at least 150 million hectares of forest by 2020 (a hectare is slightly more than 2 acres).   Their joint effort will be announced at the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit on September 23, 2014. Restoring 150 million hectares of forest, an area about the size of Alaska, would sequester roughly 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide and/or the equivalent thereof every year, reducing the current emissions gap by 11 – 17 percent.   The target date of 2020 is ambitious, but would generate US$85 billion per year in ecosystem services that would benefit the rural poor all  over the world. The rate of global deforestation has slowed significantly since the beginnin