Latest News
No-Hopenhagen? Moving onwards and upwards from the last round of climate change debates...
RFUK Climate Change and Forests Advisor Nat Dyer has recently returned from a joint-UN mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to ensure that community rights were respected as the country begins preparing a national plan to reduce carbon emissions from forest destruction. Click below to read about his trip, our work at Copenhagen and our plans for the coming months.
Putting forest communities on the map!
Current research on deforestation suggests that securing community land rights is one of the most effective ways in which to protect forests and reduce poverty in forest communities. In the last four year's hundreds of men and women from Bantu and indigenous communities have been trained to use a very powerful anti-logging device to protect their rainforest home, their lands and their access to forest resources. Their tool, the mighty Geographical Positioning System (GPS) is part of a mapping project that last year extended to cover another three counties in the Congo Basin.
ECOSYSTEMS CLIMATE ALLIANCE CALLS ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS TO ACTION OVER PALM OIL FORESTS DEFINITION
Environment and social NGOs have joined on mass to oppose moves by Indonesia and the EU to define oil palm plantations as forests just as Environment ministers from more than 100 countries meet this week in Bali. The NGOs known collectively as The Ecosystems Climate Alliance (ECA) including The Rainforest Foundation UK, Rainforest Foundation Norway, Global Witness, The Wilderness Society and Humane Society International, are calling on these Environment ministers to definitively oppose initiatives from Indonesia and the EU to reclassify oil palm plantations as forests(1), which would subvert global efforts to halt climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and threaten biodiversity, according to forest and climate experts. Redefining plantations as forests will create perverse incentives that actually finance deforestation by oil palm plantation companies. This is clearly contrary to current global efforts to protect forests by providing funds to assist countries and companies in reducing the degradation and destruction of forests and peatlands responsible for more than 15 percent of global emissions.
Help Stop The EU Commission From Forcing Biodiesel From Palm Oil!
With a few clicks below, you can add your voice against an issue we at the Rainforest Foundation UK and many other NGOs around the world consider to be a total scandal. PLEASE CLICK HERE NOW and in less than a minute you could have your voice heard by key members of the EU Commission!
Biodiesel from palm oil is one of the worst offenders causing rainforest destruction and affecting climate change. Palm oil plantations for food and fuel are the primary cause of rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia. A leaked draft EU document shows that the EU Commission would like to rename palm oil plantations as "forest" so that biodiesel from palm oil plantations can still meet EU biofuels sustainability criteria. Palm oil expansion is a major cause of deforestation and biodiesel from palm oil can create more greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuel it is meant to replace. With a few clicks HERE you can directly email the new energy and environment Commissioners and ask them to change this document to give a clear message to member states that biodiesel from palm oil should not be part of sustainable EU energy provision.
Rainforest Foundation UK 20 Years and Counting
Blogs
Sam's been back to Central African Republic (CAR) one of the most inaccessible countries in the Congo Basin. Read about his experiences here.
Do Trees Grow on Money?
Rainforests are back on the global agenda in a big way. Governments now recognise the importance of protecting tropical forests in order to avoid dangerous climate change, and there is now much debate. As governments try to thrash out the details of a new international agreement, expected to be signed at the end of 2009, they are discussing how best to include measures to save rainforests, and thereby address one of the major causes of climate change. Worldwide, forest destruction generates more greenhouse gas emissions each year than do all the trains, planes and cars on the planet. So if we are to tackle global warming, there is an urgent need to find ways to reduce the 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by forest destruction each year, and to keep the remaining forests standing.
