英国新闻听力 债务转换与森林保护（在线收听）

REPORTER: In this edition of One Planet on the BBC World Service, I'll be looking at the role debt swaps can play in trying to help conserve some of the world's most valuable forests.

CLAUDIA MCMURRAY: The effort was to take forgiven debt and put it towards forest conservation in the simplest terms and we've been able to conclude thirteen deals with twelve countries that will amount to, over the next several years, well over a hundred and sixty million dollars in forest conservation.

REPORTER: Claudia McMurray is the U.S assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science. She says the American government's decision to write off twenty six million dollars in debt owed by Costa Rica will be the biggest debt for nature swap the U.S has implemented so far. It was made possible by an act of congress passed nine years ago, the Tropical Forest Conservation Act.

CLAUDIA MCMURRAY: It was a way for us to have a priority of ours addressed, which is forest conservation and to do it in such a way that it also brought benefits to the country with the debt. They got their debt forgiven and they also got the benefit, the extra benefit now we're finding, of saving their forest which is something that was important to these countries, but maybe they just couldn't get it done with the existing funding they have. So this was an extra incentive for them to do that.

REPORTER: But why exactly are you tying in the debt relief to forest conservation?

CLAUDIA MCMURRAY: Well, countries that we were focused on, and I'll say generally they were in central and South America where there was very, very precious rain forests, but also we've started to do some work in Africa and in parts of Asia like the Philippines and Bangladesh. Those are countries that obviously have a lot of challenges. They have poverty, they have human challenges that they need to address and so maybe the forest conservation part of their work wasn't the highest priority, just because of everything else they had to address. But we were able to come in and say "You've got this debt on the books, provided we could all agree, we would like to forgive that debt and put it towards something that we know is important to you and is also important to us and that's to save the rain forest or the forest in a particular country".

REPORTER: That makes it sound like very altruistic legislation but very simply, what's in this for the United States?

CLAUDIA MCMURRAY: Sustainable development, you know, obviously all countries need sources of timber in a sustainable way but also there are environmental benefits to forest conservation. As I said this was something we've been doing for quite a while and it's only recently that we've actually determined there are additional quantifiable environmental benefits by saving the forest in the climate change area. It actually absorbs green house gases so it's an important tool in the tool box for fighting climate change.

记者：在本期的BBC世界电台《同一个星球》节目中，我将会带您了解债务转换在保护全球最有价值森林上所起到的重要作用。

克劳迪娅·麦克莫瑞：我们将那些被豁免的债务通过最简单的形式投入到森林保护业中，目前我们已经和十二个国家订立了13项合约，这样在未来的几年内将有一亿六千万美元资金被投入到森林保护业。

记者：克劳迪娅·麦克莫瑞是美国负责海洋及国际环境科学事务局的助理国务卿。她表示，美国政府决定勾销哥斯达黎加向其借贷的两千六百万美元债务，这是迄今为止美国执行的金额最大的一笔以债务转换自然资源的销账决议。这一决议的产生是源于九年前议会通过的一项法案--《热带雨林保护法》。

克劳迪娅·麦克莫瑞：这种方法可以让我们确定我们目前工作的重中之重，那就是森林保护，并且这种方式也给负债国带来很多好处。首先他们的债务得到了豁免，现在我们还发现，森林保护让这些国家获得了一些额外的好处，因为保护森林对这些国家本身也是非常重要的，只是可能他们现有的财政状况不允许他们实施这些保护措施。因此对他们而言这也是一种额外的激励措施。

记者：但究竟是什么让你们想到将债务免除与森林保护联系起来？

克劳迪娅·麦克莫瑞：我们主要把注意力集中在中、南美洲的一些国家，这些国家拥有非常非常珍贵的热带雨林资源，我们已经开始在非洲，以及亚洲部分地区，如菲律宾，孟加拉国等国展开了一些工作。显然在这些地区开展工作会面临很多挑战。这些国家比较贫穷，面临很多人文问题需要解决，所以森林保护对他们来说可能并不是最重要的工作，因为他们有很多其他亟待解决的问题。但是我们可以参与进来，告诉他们"你们已经有了这项债务，如果我们双方达成协议，我们将会豁免你们的债务，并且将其用在一项对我们双方国家都非常重要的事业上，那就是保护热带雨林或是某个国家的森林。"

记者：这听起来像一条利他主义法规，只是，对美国而言，这一举措有什么意义呢？

克劳迪娅·麦克莫瑞：可持续发展，毋庸置疑，所有的国家都需要木材资源来维持其可持续发展，同时森林保护还可以带来环境效益。正如我之前说过的，我们从事这一工作已经有很长一段时期了，只是直到最近我们才完成了实际测定，证实保护气候变化地区的森林资源能够产生可量化的额外环境效益。它可以吸收大气中的温室气体，所以绿色森林是改善气候变化的最有力工具。