New Information Shows that REDD+ is Working

Amid the flurry of news on Climate Change, and after the climate conference in Cancún, which included a historic agreement on REDD + (reducing emissions from deforestation and actions for forests), a major news seems to have passed without further notoriety. During the past two months, several new analysis have provided clear evidence that deforestation has been reduced in recent years. In fact, the reduction is quite striking, and shows that all mechanisms to avoid the dire consequences of global warming, the reduction of deforestation in tropical forests is by far the largest contributor so far. 

The first analysis, released in October, was the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2010 (Assessment of global forest resources) . This compendium of information on every country in the world is published every five years and provides the most comprehensive look at the state of the world's forests. FRA The new information shows that tropical deforestation in the first decade of this century was reduced by 18% compared to the level of the decade of 1990, down from 11.33 million hectares per year, 9.34 million hectares per year. Furthermore, the rate of deforestation in the last 5 years was lower than the first 5 years of the century, mainly by a dramatic reduction in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The FRA 2010 also shows that the rate of loss of primary forest, not the total forest area, has also been reduced.