New plan to save Amazon forests

Logging and cattle-ranching have swallowed large areas

By Tim Hirsch BBC environment correspondent

A new action plan to prevent further destruction of the Amazon rainforest is being launched at a conference in London on Thursday.

Academics and environmental groups are warning that the world's climate could be seriously threatened if current plans to develop the forest are allowed to continue.

Logging and cattle ranching in recent decades have already removed an area the size of France from the Amazon forest, which was once as big as the whole of Western Europe.

About 15 percent of Brazil's rainforest is already destroyed

A report setting the scene for the conference warns that current plans by the Brazilian government could destroy nearly half of the remaining forest in two decades, through a combination of dams flooding huge areas and the clearing of land to grow soya beans.

Incentives

Recent research suggests that the Amazon is even more important to the world's climate than previously thought.

Not only does it soak up vast quantities of carbon dioxide which adds to the greenhouse effect if it's released through burning, but destruction of the forest is now thought to affect rainfall patterns across wide areas of the world.

The campaigner Bianca Jagger will present the new action plan to provide financial incentives to South American governments to curb further development of the forest.