The 81st Race for the Rain Forest Thread

Charles launches campaign to save ravaged rainforests

David Smith The Observer
Sunday October 21 2007

Prince Charles will this week join the battle against climate change by launching an organisation which calls for a new green economics that recognises the world's rainforests are worth more alive than dead.

The Prince's Rainforests Project will bring together environmentalists, scientists and leaders from the developing world in an effort to halt mass deforestation - a bigger contributor to global warming than the world's entire transport sector, including aviation.

In a speech to the Worldwide Fund for Nature at a gala dinner at Hampton Court Palace on Thursday, the Prince of Wales will argue that a tree makes a more valuable contribution to the planet standing in a forest than if chopped down to feed markets for cheap land and timber.

He is likely to cite figures from campaigners showing that deforestation is responsible for 18-25 per cent of global carbon emissions, an output second only to energy production. Around the world a forest area the size of Birmingham and Manchester combined is lost every day, resulting in an extra 22 million tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere. In aviation pollution terms, this is the equivalent of flying 37 million people from London to New York every day.

Andrew Mitchell, senior adviser to the Prince's Rainforests Project, which has raised £1m from 12 private sector companies, told The Observer: 'The Prince of Wales is trying to pull the best brains in the world together. The forests have huge value which we all use but don't pay for. They store gigantic amounts of carbon in their roots, trees and branches; twice as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere. The Amazon alone stores 67 billion tonnes of carbon.'

Charles has a long record of environmental campaigning and described the threat to the planet as 'the greatest challenge to face man'. His small farms and organic produce have attempted to lead by example, but he has been criticised for his carbon footprint generated by frequent flying and a fleet of cars.