The Brazil FIP Investment Plan will maximize the impact of actions being carried out by the country’s ministries of environment, science and technology, and agriculture to reduce deforestation in the Cerrado biome by improving environmental management in areas already altered by people and by producing and disseminating environmental information. The plan was endorsed by the FIP Sub-committee in May 2012.
A vast savanna region that accounts for more than a fifth of Brazil’s territory, the Cerrado is home to many habitats and species as well as indigenous cultures. The investment plan presents four operations for a total of US$70 million in FIP grants and concessional loans to be carried out by the IDB and other multilateral development banks to protect the Cerrado and reduce GHG emissions, as follows:
- Forest information to Support Public and Private Sectors in managing initiatives focused on conservation and valorization of forest resourcesto producegood quality information for private and public sector decision-makers on forest resources and their use. (IDB approval pending)
- Environmental Regularization of Rural Landsthrough actions to ensure compliance with laws regulating deforestation and forest degradation in the Cerrado.
- Sustainable Production in Areas Previously Converted to AgriculturalUse to help reduce illegal deforestation and degradation of forests on rural landholdings, reduce emissions, and increase carbon sequestration.
- An Early-Warning System for Preventing Forest Firesand a system for monitoring the vegetation cover by using geospatial and temporal information to track removal and degradation of native vegetation cover.
The FIP-financed operations will help the country to replicate its success in drastically reducing deforestation in the Amazon from 27,700 km 2 in 2004 to only 6.200 km2 in 2011. While the Amazon biome still preserves around 80 percent of its original cover, approximately 48 percent of the Cerrado has been converted over the past 50 years.
The principal threat to the Cerrado is the boom in mechanized agriculture, which has contributed to making Brazil a global leader in food production. The challenge is to ensure that agriculture in the Cerrado can continue to develop, but in response to incentives to adopt more sustainable practices that can maintain or increase productivity and profitability while preserving natural resources and reducing GHG emissions.
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