Forestry

OTTAWA, Dec.

The provincial government of New Brunswick will be taking a series of actions to strengthen and renew the province’s forest industry.

An action plan has been drafted based on recommendations from a stakeholder summit held in November.

With commodity prices surging, lending to Brazilian farmers for tractors, harvesters and plows reached 8.2 billion reais ($4.8 billion) for the July through November 2010 period, a 64 percent increase since the same period last year and the fastest pace since 2004, reports Bloomberg.

The central government will spend 220 billion yuan ($33 billion) over the next decade to protect China's natural forests.

Billions have been pledged to fund schemes that slow climate change by saving trees and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), but the private sector won’t come on board in a big way unless forest carbon starts to behave more like established commodity forward markets, argues a new discussion paper unveiled in Cancun.