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Ja gives cautious support to forest-climate change deal
BY PETRE WILLIAMS-RAYNOR Environment editor williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Buenos Aires, Argentina - Jamaica's Forestry Department has cautiously supported the inking of a deal on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), which could see the island attracting millions to its coffers.
REDD, which proposes to pay countries that are willing and able to reduce emissions from deforestation, is to come up for discussion at the crucial United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in December.
"It (REDD) is something that I think is necessary and very important for Jamaica," chief executive officer of the Forestry Department, Marilyn Headley, told the Observer at the 13th World Forestry Congress here in Argentina.
She noted that funds earned from such a mechanism could be channelled, for example, into the reforestation of the Yallahs watershed, the primary water source for the Kingston Metropolitan Area and St Thomas. Agriculture practices in such areas could also be improved, Headley said.
But she was quick to add that the island had yet to work through the details of how it would wish the mechanism to work and the full extent to which it could actually benefit.
"I don't think we have started as a country to really look at it. But I know we are going to have to do it before Copenhagen," said Headley, who is also the island's conservator of forests.
Keith Porter, Jamaica's principal director of forest operations, for his part, said his hope was that a feature of REDD would be the provision of assistance to identify how beneficial forests in Jamaica and other developing countries are to reducing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which help to fuel climate change.
"If there is technical assistance, benefits could flow from that," he said, adding that often developing countries lack the resources and expertise to do research.
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