Protecting Nature Reserves: much better for the climate and hundreds of times cheaper

Protecting Nature Reserves: hundreds times cheaper than planting forests
According to the data of the United Nations Protected Areas database, there are almost one billion (1,000,000,000) ha of protected areas in developing and transition countries; about as much as Brazil and Peru together. If without sufficient rangers, half of those areas would disappear, the forests would disappear in half a billion (500,000,000) ha. That is more than 100 times of what could be planted as forest plantations over the same period of time, a measure that is promoted under the Kyoto protocol against climate change.

Planting new forest easily costs $1,000 - $5,000 per ha and like nature reserves, planted forests need to be protected by rangers, while additionally they need to be managed at least during the first 10 years. Compared to protected areas, forest plantations are small and therefore their cost per ha can be as much as 100 times more expensive than those of natural protected areas. So protecting nature reserves may be several hundred times cheaper than planting new forests, while it is far more effective in preventing CO2 production than forest plantations are in reducing CO2 from the air. Protecting nature reserves helps reduce the onslaught of life on earth, whereas forest plantations contribute very little to species conservation.

If you feel you want to do something that REALLY helps against climate change, you can be sure that adopting a ranger is one of the most effective ways. By adopting a ranger, you help prevent hundreds of millions of hectares of forest turn into Carbon dioxide (CO2) over the next twenty years, while you help protect the millions of species that would disappear with the forests. http://www.adopt-a-ranger.org/carbon_offset.htm has been created to raise funds to effectively help protect nature in developing and transition countries.