- Reaction score
- 1,633
TORONTO, July 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As environmentalists debate how best to preserve the world's dwindling forests, a study published on Thursday offered a simple solution: pay land owners in poor countries not to cut down the trees.
Deforestation dropped by more than half in Ugandan villages where land owners were paid about $28 per hectare each year if they preserved their trees, according to the study from U.S. researchers published in the journal Science.
The benefits of paying land owners to preserve forests were more than two times greater than the cost of the programme when it comes to protecting forests and tackling climate change which is exacerbated by deforestation, said the two-year study.
Economists who crunched the numbers on forest preservation say the model pioneered in Uganda could be expanded to other countries with large tropical forests including Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Peru as part of the fight against global warming.
"When you think of the damage done by climate change, paying people to conserve forests is cost effective," said Northwestern University economist Seema Jayachandran, the study's lead author.
"It is a straight forward idea and the benefits are bigger than the costs," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Read more here. (Reuters)
Deforestation dropped by more than half in Ugandan villages where land owners were paid about $28 per hectare each year if they preserved their trees, according to the study from U.S. researchers published in the journal Science.
The benefits of paying land owners to preserve forests were more than two times greater than the cost of the programme when it comes to protecting forests and tackling climate change which is exacerbated by deforestation, said the two-year study.
Economists who crunched the numbers on forest preservation say the model pioneered in Uganda could be expanded to other countries with large tropical forests including Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Peru as part of the fight against global warming.
"When you think of the damage done by climate change, paying people to conserve forests is cost effective," said Northwestern University economist Seema Jayachandran, the study's lead author.
"It is a straight forward idea and the benefits are bigger than the costs," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Read more here. (Reuters)