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IDB and Brazilian banks announce development of Amazon rainforest ETF

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IDB and Brazilian banks announce development of Amazon rainforest ETF

The Inter-American Development Bank and Brazilian public banks BNDES, Banco do Brasil, and Caixa Economica Federal announced on Thursday they will jointly develop an exchange-traded fund (ETF) focused on sustainable investments in the Amazon rainforest.

The proposal, first reported by Reuters on Wednesday, aims to launch the ETF in capital markets before the COP30 climate conference in the Brazilian city of Belem next year, said IDB President Ilan Goldfajn, speaking on the sidelines of a gathering of G20 finance leaders in Rio de Janeiro.

Reporting by Marcela Ayres Editing by Brad Haynes via Reuters

Microsoft announces plans to invest millions in growing rainforests — here’s why

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There is real merit in projects that protect forests against clear and present threats or projects that plant trees

As deforestation threatens the health of planet Earth, Microsoft is stepping up to help regrow forests in Brazil, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Brazil’s BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group has partnered with nonprofit Conservation International on a huge reforestation project that aims to plant trees on more than 333,592 acres of farmland in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna.

The project will cost $1 billion, of which Microsoft is funding an undisclosed portion in exchange for 8 million tons of carbon offset credits.

Carbon credits are under intense scrutiny, as some kinds of credits that were previously respected are now considered by many to be worthless.

However, there is real merit in projects that protect forests against clear and present threats or projects that plant trees, because trees remove tons of carbon pollution from the air during their life span.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has invested in planting trees. However, the WSJ reported that this deal is the largest of its kind. And Brazil is the perfect place for it, holding a huge part of the diminishing and endangered Amazon rainforest.

According to the WSJ, there are two parts to the project: Half the land will be used to grow native trees to stay there permanently, and the other half will grow trees to be harvested for timber. The timber is crucial to making the project work financially, and also, providing cultivated wood reduces the need to cut timber from wild forests.

BTG TIG, Conservation International, and Microsoft are just some of the organizations trying to protect and regrow the Amazon.

Read the full article

Reported by Laurelle Steele via The Cool Down

Esforço conjunto entre Departamento do Tesouro dos EUA e MPF no combate de crimes ambientais na Amazônia

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O Departamento do Tesouro dos Estados Unidos e o Ministério Público Federal (MPF) do Brasil estão unindo forças para enfrentar a crescente ameaça dos crimes ambientais na Amazônia e em outros biomas brasileiros. Esta colaboração visa impedir e prevenir que atores corruptos e organizações criminosas transnacionais explorem os recursos naturais para ganho financeiro.

O seminário, realizado na sede do MPF em 22 de maio, reuniu procuradores dos oito estados amazônicos, juntamente com órgãos brasileiros, como o COAF e o IBAMA. O foco foi entender as tipologias de crimes ambientais, métodos financeiros e estratégias eficazes de persecução penal.

Durante o seminário, os parceiros discutiram a situação atual das investigações de crimes ambientais no Brasil, identificando áreas para fortalecer a infraestrutura anticrime do país e implementar sanções para combater o crime ambiental. Além disso, o Tesouro dos EUA apresentou ferramentas destinadas a interromper o fluxo de financiamento ilícito proveniente desses crimes.

Alimentado por organizações criminosas transnacionais, o crime ambiental explora os recursos naturais para ganho ilegal, colocando em risco o meio ambiente e as comunidades locais. Reconhecendo a necessidade de ação imediata, tanto os EUA quanto o Brasil estão firmes em seu compromisso de combater esse crime e proteger seu patrimônio natural compartilhado. Esse esforço colaborativo marca um forte compromisso na luta contra o crime ambiental e na proteção da Amazônia, um ativo ecológico e econômico essencial para ambas as nações.

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Via U.S. Mission Brazil / Embaixada e Consulados dos EUA no Brasil

Brazil’s Mangrove Forests Represent Untapped Blue Carbon Banks, Says New Study from National Geographic Explorers

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Press Release

New research from the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition suggests increased protection of Brazil’s mangroves can help meet the country’s emissions targets

Washington, D.C. (March 4) — Released today in Nature Communications, a new study titled “The inclusion of Amazon mangroves in Brazil’s REDD+ program” suggests that Brazil’s mangroves hold untapped climate mitigation potential, sequestering an estimated 468.3 tonnes of carbon per hectare — a capacity roughly 3-20-fold higher than that of Brazilian upland biomes. The study, authored in part by National Geographic Explorers Angelo Bernardino and Margaret Awuor Owuor, proposes that it is essential that Brazil’s mangroves be included in the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as part of the Paris Agreement and could be further utilized in the voluntary carbon credit system to finance forest conservation through the REDD+ initiative.

Protecting these blue carbon reservoirs would not only be key to helping Brazil reach its 100 percent emissions reduction goal, but could also provide added economic benefit as actions to halt mangrove loss in the Amazon could potentially generate nearly 11.5 ± 0.11 million tonnes in carbon credits over a 10-yr period (2020-2030) under REDD+, suggesting they are of great value to mitigate emissions from the forestry sector and finance biodiversity conservation.

Brazil contains the second largest repository of mangrove forests in the world, yet the country’s National REDD+ strategy currently does not include the mitigation of mangrove deforestation in the context of result-based payments for reducing emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). To better understand their potential impact and advocate for these critical coastal ecosystems, Bernardino, Awuor Owuor and a team of local researchers analyzed 900 soil samples and tree measurements from over 190 forest plots to determine mangrove forest emission levels across pristine and deforested areas near the Amazon River mouth including Sucuriju, Araguari and Bailique, and to the east including Curuçá, Maracanã and Bragança.

Via NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY NEWSROOM

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Brazil’s Lula: Amazon Countries Summit to Build Common Policy for First Time

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Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday said that next week’s summit of Amazon region nations will seek to draw up a common policy for the first time to protect the rainforest.

“I have high expectations for this summit. For the first time we are going to have a common policy for the Amazon, for preservation, security, borders,” Lula said.

The eight countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) will meet Aug. 7-8 in the city of Belem at the mouth of the Amazon river.

The summit will focus on forest conservation and security along the borders, Lula said, adding that private businesses will be asked to help with the reforestation of 30 million hectares of degraded land.
Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Mark Porter and Aurora Ellis via Reuters.

Fashion Sneakers Propel Sustainable Rubber in Brazil Amazon

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Rubber tapper Raimundo Mendes de Barros prepares to leave his home, surrounded by rainforest, for an errand in the Brazilian Amazon city of Xapuri. He slides his long, scarred, 77-year-old feet into a pair of sneakers made by Veja, a French brand.

At first sight, the expensive, white-detailed urban tennis shoes seem at odds with the muddy tropical forest. But the distant worlds have converged to produce soles made from native Amazonian rubber.

Veja works with a local cooperative called Cooperacre, which has reenergized the production of a sustainable forest product and improved the lives of hundreds of rubber tapper families. It’s a project that, though modest in scale, provides a real-life example of living sustainably from the forest.“Veja and Cooperacre are doing an essential job for us who live in the forest. They are making young people come back. They have rekindled the hope of working with rubber,” Rogério Barros, Raimundo’s 24-year-old son, told The Associated Press as he demonstrated how to tap a rubber tree in the family’s grove in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve. Extractive reserves in Brazil are government-owned lands set aside for people to make a living while they keep the forest standing.

By Fabiano Maisonnave, Tatiana Pollastri, and Eraldo Peres via AP News

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Bank floats $10 bln Brazilian bond plan to halt Amazon deforestation

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Strategists at a UK bank have proposed the idea of a super-sized $10 billion Brazilian government bond that would be specifically designed to help halt the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Stopping deforestation of the Amazon, which absorbs vast amounts of planet-warming greenhouse gas, is part of Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s sweeping plan to reclaim leadership on climate change measures.

He has recently asked the United States, Britain, France, Switzerland and Canada to join an international Amazon protection fund set up during his first 2003-10 administration and has made a firm commitment to zero deforestation by 2030.

To help stick to that pledge, strategists at NatWest have proposed what would be the world’s biggest ever ‘sustainability-linked bond’ – a special type of government debt that would have an explicit promise to protect the rainforest.

By Marc Jones via Reuters

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