Forest Cover

Today it has been pouring rain for most of the afternoon, reminding me why they call it the rainforest.
Brazil recently announced a 45% reduction in deforestation of the Amazon forest from 13,000 sq km to 7,000 sq km. This is of course great news for Brazil, who can pat itself on the back leading up to COP15 in Copenhagen, but as Greenpeace's Amazon director, Paulo Adario, stated, "a lot of forest is still coming down".
The other day I was talking with our translator here and he told me he will be working on another project next month dealing with carbon credits. Some businessmen from America are coming down to purchase credits and will put them up on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), where American companies can pick them up as an offset. Such a transaction essentially preserves parts of the rainforest, with monitoring done by the company responsible for the value of the credits--giving the right incentive for them to keep a close eye on actual forest cover. It's the type of thing people are talking about when they say "cap and trade".
However, it's still a question as to why there was such a dramatic drop in deforestation. Was it solely because the Brazilian authorities are practicing good governance? Or is a significant amount of that due to less demand on account of the global recession? But a CCX-type offset is the type of incentive needed to provide value to keeping the forests intact. It is offsetting carbon emissions, yes, but also offsetting the imbalance in deriving profit from the forest through destruction as opposed to preservation/restoration.
As the world nears December 7th, when the climate change conference will commence, their is hope in the air. Yet, there is little expectation that a final agreement will be made during this conference on account of slow U.S. legislation on the matter. Whether that will pressure the U.S. to lay its cards on the table or whether it will mean an additional COP 15.5 in the Spring is to be seen, although it's a sad state of affairs when people look to the U.S. for leadership and are given a blank stare in response. Of course the U.S. has a plethora of successes of its own, maybe not at the scale of Amazon forest preservation, but the CCX itself is proof that people are out there working toward a solution despite the failure at the federal level.