Argentina commits to restoring one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of woodland.

[forest444]

Argentina committed yesterday to restoring one million hectares of degraded and deforested land as part of the 20x20 Initiative, a Latin American effort seeking to significantly restore the region's woodlands by 2020. This makes Argentina's commitment one of the largest in a total 24.8 million hectares to be restored around the world hope thanks to US$730 million on funds assigned by governments and investors globally as part of the broader Bonn Challenge.

The new commitments announced yesterday are built on pledges by eight countries, two regional initiatives and five investors. The 20x20 initiative had already been launched last year at the climate change summit in Lima, hoping to restore 18 million hectares; but now thanks to the new pledges - including this one - an additional 6.18 mil. hectares will be restored.

Land restoration is a key strategy for mitigating and adapting to climate change.
“Argentina is one of the leading countries in the region on agricultural production so its involvement in the project was essential. It has a strong potential to restore a lot of its degraded land,” Walter Vergara, head of the initiative, told the Herald. “We hope to have a constructive dialogue with the newly elected government (Macri) so the one million hectares objective becomes a reality.”

Following Argentina’s commitment, Nicaragua agreed yesterday to restore 2.8 million hectares; Costa Rica and Honduras, one million each; Chile, 500,000; the State of São Paulo (Brazil) 300,000 hectares; the State of Espirito Santo (Brazil) 80,000; and the American Bird Conservancy, a regional program, 100,000.

Land-use change, forestry and agriculture account for roughly one half of the emissions from Latin America and the Caribbean, in contrast to highly industrialized and less forested areas where emissions are typically dominated by energy use and industrial emissions.

More than 200 million hectares (500 million acres) of land are available for restoration in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). Through the initiative, countries will work to restore forests on cleared land and improve the productivity of landscapes through better use of trees in agriculture and livestock production.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/204462/argentina-commits-to-restoring-one-million-hectares
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There's the rub: “We hope to have a constructive dialogue with the newly elected government so the one million hectares objective becomes a reality.”

This commitment will probably feel as left out in a neocon administration like Macri's, as a bible in a brothel.

[Judi Lynn]

1. We need to hope Macri will make this concession for a world in desperate need of healing.

Right-wing politicians have no interests beyond what can make them more powerful, at all costs to everything else.

At least he knows a lot of people will be watching, for what that's worth.

[forest444]

2. Well said, Judi Lynn. Whatever Macri's petty business interests may be, he needs to be held to this

Despite his well-earned reputation as a bratty cabrón, there's reason to believe Macri will fold on certain issues if enough people keep up the pressure - especially if said pressure comes from the well-connected.

Take higher education:

During the runoff campaign the National University Council (CIN), a roundtable of college presidents and dean from across Argentina, endorsed Scioli for President. Their reasoning was simple: public higher education budgets had tripled in real terms during the Kirchner era, 15 new public colleges had been opened, thousands of academics had returned from Spain, enrollment was way up, and so on. For them it was a simple question of rewarding a good record.

But that's not how the touchy Mr. Macri saw it: for him it was a personal slight. His reaction? He nominated a talk show producer, Juan Ávila, as Secretary of University Policy - the first non-academic ever named to the post, and as you can imagine a very deliberate insult against Argentina's 170,000 college faculty staff. The fact that Ávila is the son of the founder of a sports channel controlled by the Clarín Group added a good whiff of corruption to the already unpresidential motive.

What Macri did not count on, was the clout academics have in Argentina when they're united and the public outcry against the nomination of the decidedly unprofessorial Mr. Ávila - a man who could have easily been cast as one of Rocky Balboa's trainers (with apologies to Burt Young).

After a few days of that, Macri relented. Save the photo, as they say, because that doesn't happen too often.

The point of the story is that when the heat is on, Macri prefers the shade. As with the ongoing human rights trials, the only way Macri will keep faith with this agreement is if the international community holds him to it.