<P> In 2006 Brazil proposed a direct finance route to deal with the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries, or REDD, issue, recognizing that deforestation contributes to 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions . The competing proposal for the REDD issue is a carbon emission credit system, where reduced deforestation would receive "marketable emissions credits". In effect, developed countries could reduce their carbon emissions, and approach their emissions quota by investing in the reforestation of developing rainforest countries . Instead, Brazil's 2006 proposal would draw from a fund based upon donor country contributors . </P> <P> By 2005 forest removal had fallen to 9,000 km (3,500 sq mi) of forest compared to 18,000 km (6,900 sq mi) in 2003 and on July 5, 2007, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced at the International Conference on Biofuels in Brussels that more than 20 million hectares of conservation units to protect the forest and more efficient fuel production had allowed the rate of deforestation to fall by 52% in the three years since 2004 . </P> <P> Daniel Nepstad, a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center which focuses on tackling two deforestation issues in Brazil has demonstrated that Brazil's deforestation rates have been cut nearly in half in recent years through a combination of government intervention and economic trends . Since 2004 the country has established more than 200,000 square kilometres of parks, nature reserves, and national forests in the Amazon rainforest . These protected areas, if fully enforced, aim to prevent an estimated one billion tons of carbon from being transferred to the atmosphere through deforestation by the year 2015 . The academic evidence suggests that the creation of public lands, through the assignment of property rights, reduces incentives to deforest land for agricultural conversion and has contributed to reduction in land related conflict . </P> <P> In 2005 Brazilian Environment Minister Marina da Silva announced that 9,000 km (3,500 sq mi) of forest had been felled in the previous year, compared with more than 18,000 km (6,900 sq mi) in 2003 and 2004 . Between 2005 and 2006 there was a 41% drop in deforestation; nonetheless, Brazil still had the largest area of forest removed annually on the planet . </P>

Why is the rate of deforestation now decreasing in brazil
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