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News from 2015-08-25 / KfW Development Bank

Start of the 3rd phase of ARPA

KfW supports Brazil's environmental protection programmes

The third phase of ARPA (Amazon Region Protected Area Program) was recently initiated in the scope of government negotiations between Germany and Brazil. Phase three provides for the establishment of a fund (ARPA for Life) that is to secure permanent financing for the protected areas. On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), KfW promised to contribute another EUR 31.7 million to protect the tropical forests in Brazil under the largest tropical forest conservation programme worldwide. Thanks to these funds, an area of 60 million hectares will be protected for 25 years until Brazil is able to independently provide for the upkeep of all the protected areas.

The ARPA programme was established in 2002 to save the tropical forests in Brazil. To date, KfW has supported the programme on behalf of the BMZ with a total of about EUR 89.4 million, EUR 57.6 million of which was already disbursed between 2003 and 2014 for demarcating and designating 52 million hectares of tropical forests.

Brazil is fighting illegal deforestation

The tropical forests in Brazil are among the largest remaining jungle regions worldwide; they are the habitat of 1.4 million animal and plant species. However, in the last few decades large areas of forest were logged (partly illegally) to win arable land. In order to protect the remaining forest areas, Brazil is modernising its corresponding policies with the assistance of its partners, and has started to combat illegal deforestation on a huge scale. Brazil has thus been able to reduce deforestation in Amazonia by nearly 80 % in the last ten years.

The prolongation of German support measures was signed by Stephan Opitz, Member of the Management Committee of KfW Development Bank, and Rosa Lemos de Sá, President of FUNBIO (Fundo Brasileiro para a Biodiversidade), at the forest conference held by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment. The conference was part of the Brazilian-German government negotiations. In addition to the majority of the cabinet, even Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel travelled to Brazil.

KfW will support the programme with additional funds amounting to EUR 31.7 million. The Brazilian Ministry of Environment MMA (Ministério do Meio Ambiente) is the project-executing agency.

ARPA for Life has received total funds of EUR 175 million. Alongside Germany (the largest single donor) the following organisations are also involved: Global Environment Facility (GEF) represented by the World Bank, the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank), the national Amazon fund, the Linden Trust for Conservation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the WWF.

View of the tropical forest and its mountain landscape.
The tropical forest in Brazil is one of the largest still remaining jungle regions in the world.