WHAT NATURE NEEDS YOU TO UNDERSTAND

• 1 hectare (2 1/2 acre) of rainforest binds approx. 100 tonnes of CO²
  
  
• By supporting World Land Trust  and REGUA with the purchase of a half an acre of threatened Atlantic Rainforest in the Guapi Assu Reserve in Brazil this binds approx. 20 tonnes CO².  
  
  
• As to the trees, they also run to 450 species, although Regua is planting only 45 of the varieties that do best. Such is the care with which they are nurtured that the survival rate is an exceptional 90 per cent. A high proportion are raised in the reserve's nursery from seeds collected in the forest.

• The whole planet's rainforests is estimated to store over 600 billion tons of carbon. 
   
• E.g, every Dane emits on average 11 tons of CO² per year.
  
  
• When the rainforest is precipitated or burned down it releases carbon into the atmosphere in the form of CO². This release is about 20% of global CO² emissions. 
  
  
• Other problems linked to rainforest destruction besides the CO² problem is, most important of all, the extinction of biodiversity:  plant and animal species. 
  
  
• Within just Regua's boundaries some 450 species of bird have been recorded, more than 10 per cent of them Brazilian endemics. There are also 55 different mammals - puma, ocelot, sloth and woolly spider monkey among them. 

• Plants needs light and air to grow and survive. This gives the necessary feature called photosynthesis. Is there an excessive level of CO² in the air, this will choke the plants, an important element in the food chain will disappear. This starts a negative downward spiral, so animals and humans can no longer find food, and therefore disappears. 
  
  
• Avoided deforestation – essentially protecting standing forest under imminent threat of clearance from being cut down, so preventing the release of its stocked carbon.

• REDD - reducing emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degeneration. Deforestation, especially in the tropics, contributes about 20 percent of man-made global carbon emissions, some two billion tonnes of carbon per year. Trees are 50 percent carbon and release carbon dioxide (CO²) when they rot or burn. Forests soak up vast amounts of CO² and clearing the land erodes soils that are also carbon stores.

• Clean Development Mechanism (CMD) is an agreement under the Kyoto Protocol that allows industrialized countries' enterprises to invest in sustainable projects in developing countries (The purchase of CO² allowances to neutralize CO² emissions). This allows companies to participate in the global CO² accounting goes up. 

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