Brazil offered $1 billion to save Amazon forest

Norway is first country to pledge to fund with $21 billion goal

BRASILIA, Brazil – Norway will give Brazil $1 billion by 2015 to preserve the Amazon rain forest, as long as Latin America’s largest nation reduces deforestation, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.

The promised donation is the first to a new Amazon preservation fund Brazilian officials hope will raise $21 billion to protect nature reserves, to persuade loggers and farmers to stop destroying trees and to finance scientific and technological projects.

“Efforts against deforestation may give us the largest, quickest and cheapest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” Stoltenberg told reporters. “Brazilian efforts against deforestation are therefore of vital importance if we shall succeed in our campaign against global warming.”

MSNBC