This is a guest post from Daniel Brindis at the Prince’s Rainforest Project, one of our new partners. This week is a big one for rainforest–just yesterday, Greenpeace released a report on deforestation in the Amazon.
Addressing tropical deforestation is key for reaching the goal of 350 ppm. Deforestation accounts for almost a fifth of Greenhouse Gas emissions and The Prince’s Rainforests Project launched a public awareness campaign this May that aims to educate the general public about the connection between Rainforests and Climate Change. The feature of this campaign is a video featuring, amongst others, Pele, the Dalai Lama, Daniel Craig, and Kermit the Frog.
Today, June 5th, the Project’s website released a fun interactive application that allows you to take a video of yourself, splice it along with celebrities and friends into your own campaign film, forward to friends, post on blogs and social networking sites, and spread the word about the importance of curbing tropical deforestation immediately. We encourage you to sign up and make your own video today and consider passing it on to friends.
Observers expect forest protections to be incorporated into Copenhagen but it may take almost a decade for these protections to take effect. In the meantime, the world stands to lose 100 million hectares of rainforest over the next ten years (the size of Egypt). The Prince’s Rainforests Project has developed some emergency proposals-operating independent of Copenhagen- that aim to address the underlying drivers of deforestation and make the forests “worth more alive than dead.” The Project presented its proposals to world leaders this past April in London around the time of the G20 and this presentation led to the formation of an International Working Group comprised of Funder Nations and Rainforest Nations who are currently evaluating various deforestation emergency proposals.
By educating the public on rainforests and Climate Change, the campaign could generate the public will necessary to urge leaders to meaningfully address Climate Change and Deforestation.
The Prince’s Rainforest Project also plans to spread the word and participate on the International Day of Climate Action October 24.