By IANS
Manaus (Brazil) : The Brazilian state of Amazonas marked World Environment Day by enacting a law that aims at both curbing global warming and fostering development of a "green" economy.
The measure, signed into a law Tuesday, provides sanctions for offenders as also incentives to promote the rational and responsible use of natural resources, ensuring that the public participates in their preservation.
Gov. Eduardo Braga signed the law, the first of its kind in Brazil, Tuesday at a ceremony in Manaus, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.
With the new law, the Amazonas government is making its contribution in the world efforts to stem the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and at the same time it is equipping itself with an instrument to foster sustainable economic development in the region.
Among the mechanisms contained in the measure is the creation of the first regional fund for climate change that will permit development of control, conservation, reforestation and sustainable resource management activities.
The fund will finance, among other things, a programme to reduce poverty at the same time that encourages ways to stop deforestation.
Braga said that the first beneficiaries of the programme are 8,500 families who live in areas declared to be "conservation units".
The families will receive some 600 reais (nearly $300) each year in exchange for environmental products and services, but the government hopes to include 60,000 families in the plan by 2010, the governor told reporters.
In addition, the fund will help to develop monitoring, conservation and sustainable development activities.
In other areas, the new law spurs what is known as carbon trading, a financial mechanism created by virtue of the Kyoto Protocol, which established goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
The carbon trading market functions via the sale of certificates for emission of the gases on stock markets.
The industrialized countries that have to fulfil commitments to reduce gas emissions can buy credits to compensate for their emissions, in effect purchasing into projects in developing countries linked to reforestation, energy efficiency and the development of alternative energy sources, among other things.
Amazonia as a whole contains 16 percent of the planet's fresh water, 157 million hectares of forests, rivers and lakes and the world's greatest diversity of plant and fish species.
The Brazilian state of Amazonas, meanwhile, has 34 areas set aside for environmental conservation totalling 17 million hectares of preserved forests where 65 Indian tribes live who, according to the state government, have worked with regional programs to halt the loss of forest areas.
Over the past four years, that alliance has resulted in the reduction of deforestation by 53 percent and prevented the release of 430 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to official sources.