Welcome News but 10 percent is not enough

Meg Symington is managing director for WWF’s Amazon program. She contributed this article to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

On May 21, the Brazilian government, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and partners announced the creation of a $215 million fund to ensure long-term protection of the world’s largest network of protected areas — 150 million acres of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.

It’s not often as conservationists that we get to celebrate such a big win.

http://www.livescience.com/45865-amazon-swath-preserved-in-huge-partnership.html

 

Can there be enough emphasis on how rainforest contributes to rainfall in the American Southwest and southern California?

 

Not so good news elsewhere

“Healthy forests can improve climate resilience by regulating watersheds and, among other things, acting as a shelter, while also mitigating climate change through capturing and containing carbon, the report continues.

But in Cambodia, where average annual temperatures have already increased by almost a full degree since 1960 and scientists have observed a two-month delay in the start of the rainy season, forest loss is the second worst in ASEAN, with nearly 92,000 hectares of forest disappearing every year.

“We all understand the consequences of deforestation and forest degradation, but individuals continue with short-term profit because there is no good preservation alternative that can compete,” Tin Ponlock, the Ministry of the Environment’s deputy climate change director, said.”

 

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98deforestation-plagues-asean%E2%80%99