WWF Helps Set Up Amazon Trust Fund; Goal Is Protection of Area Bigger Than U.S. Parks System Over Next 10 Years.Business Editors/Environment Writers BRASILIA, Brazil--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 3, 2004 World Wildlife Fund announced the creation Thursday of a permanent, multi-million dollar endowment to fund conservation efforts in the Brazilian Amazon in partnership with the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and the government of Brazil. In a ceremony at the presidential palace in Brasilia, WWF See Windows Workflow Foundation. officials presented President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva with a check for $500,000 in seed money for the Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA ARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ) trust fund. The GEF GEF Global Environment Facility GEF Guanine-Nucleotide Exchange Factor (biology, biochemistry) GEF Global Environment Fund GEF Generic Extensibility Framework GEF Graduate Education Foundation GEF Global Ejection Fraction contributed a matching $500,000 grant for the fund's initial capitalization. The funds are in addition to some $80 million already raised by WWF and its partners to finance a 10-year plan to create a network of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon one and a half times larger than the entire U.S. National Parks Areas in the United States are preserved by a variety of federal departments and are titled with a large area of different designations. Many of the most spectacular and significant landscapes are designated National Parks; some of the wildest are designated wilderness areas. system. "With the establishment of the ARPA trust fund, we have reached an important milestone in our efforts to reverse the tide of deforestation deforestation Process of clearing forests. Rates of deforestation are particularly high in the tropics, where the poor quality of the soil has led to the practice of routine clear-cutting to make new soil available for agricultural use. and secure permanent protection for the Amazon," said Guillermo Castilleja, WWF vice president for Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. and the Caribbean. "While we still have a long way to go, ARPA is no longer a dream. It's a reality in the making." When fully capitalized at $240 million, the ARPA trust fund will be used to maintain and ensure continued protection of a 190,000 square-mile network of national parks This is a list of national parks ordered by nation. Africa
Similar to successful trusts that WWF has set up around the world, in places like Bhutan, Mexico and the Philippines, the endowment fund will "help guarantee that the parks are protected in fact, not just in name," added Matt Perl, WWF director for Amazon protected areas. Brazilian environmentalist environmentalist a person with an interest and knowledge about the interaction of humans and animals with the environment. Paulo Nogueira-Neto, a member of the board of WWF-Brazil, presented the WWF check to President Lula at a ceremony in the Planalto presidential palace. Other participants included Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva and Dr. Rosa Lemos de Sa, conservation director of WWF-Brazil. One of the largest and most ambitious conservation projects ever undertaken, ARPA is a partnership between the Brazilian government, the World Bank, the GEF, World Wildlife Fund, the German Development Bank and the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund. More than 20,000 square miles of new protected areas have already been established under ARPA, including the 15,000 square-mile Tumucumaque Mountains National Park. Other areas have been mapped and are undergoing scientific evaluation for inclusion in the ARPA network. Editors' Note: ARPA was conceived and implemented with support from the World Bank/WWF Alliance for Forest Conservation & Sustainable Use. For more information on the Alliance, visit http://www.forest-alliance.org. For more information about WWF, visit http://www.worldwildlife.org World Wildlife Fund, known worldwide by its panda logo, leads international efforts to protect endangered species endangered species, any plant or animal species whose ability to survive and reproduce has been jeopardized by human activities. In 1999 the U.S. government, in accordance with the U.S. and their habitats and to conserve the diversity of life on earth. Now in its fifth decade, WWF works in more than 150 countries around the globe |
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