Prince Charles honored for his efforts to fight climate change

Manaus, Brazil – Prince Charles has received the Friend of the Forest and Climate Award from Conservation International (CI) and the Brazilian state of Amazonas for his efforts to fight climate change and help indigenous tropical forest communities. Amazonas Gov. Eduardo Braga presented the award during the visit of the Prince of Wales and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, to the town of Manaus.

The award recognized Prince Charles for The Prince’s Rainforests Project (www.princesrainforestsproject.org) created in 2007 to seek ways to create economic value for the ecosystems services provided by tropical forests. The project’s goal is to develop incentives – in the form of compensation for ecosystem services – for conserving tropical forests and the multiple benefits they provide, such as carbon sequestration to combat climate change and essential resources for local inhabitants.

“The interest of his Highness in the Amazon state and his contribution to the Amazon rainforest as a whole show his commitment to helping the sustainable development of our region,” said Nádia Ferreira, secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Amazonas government.

José Maria Cardoso da Silva, Vice President for South America at CI, said the award honors to the efforts of Prince Charles to conserve biodiversity and combat global warming. “His initiative reflects a growing engagement of nations from the Northern Hemisphere in actions to fight climate change. Theses nations are aware of their power, role and influence capacity, and their efforts promote best practices worldwide around the issue of climate change,” Silva said.

The Friend of the Forest and Climate Award was created as part of legislation in Amazonas to address climate change, sustainable development and protection of communities. The state of Amazonas is the first in Brazil to adopt such legislation, and has been partnering with CI since 2004 in working to create protected areas and conservation policies.

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