cattle farmers burn land and deforest it to make land for their cattle Brazil is one of the nations that has signed the pledge.
Penner is an actor.
One of the biggest announcements at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, was a pledge to halt and reverse deforestation around the world. The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the case for forests by the time he took the stage. The total has grown since then.
Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, and most nations of Africa are supporters of the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use. They control 90 percent of the world's forests. They are going to stop and reverse the destruction of the planet by the year 2030.
An activist from Chad named Hindou Ibrahim took the podium to sound a note of skepticism as Johnson left the room.
She said that some governments and companies are responsible for land-stealing in many areas.
Ibrahim said that speeches are worthless without action. She told them that she will be waiting to see what governments and private companies do in the coming year before she makes a decision on the next big climate meeting.
Ibrahim's skepticism is justified according to an expert at the World Resources Institute. The New York Declaration on Forests, which 40 countries and dozens of private companies endorsed in 2014, is one example of similar promises being made. In the last few years, millions of acres of tropical forest have been cleared.
There are some reasons to hope that this latest set of pledges will produce better results.
Tools to protect forests are new.
Anti-deforestation activists have improved their ability to detect deforestation through satellite monitoring. She says that they can see where it's happening almost in real time.
She says that they understand the forces behind the destruction of the environment. Brazil has clear economic incentives at work based on expanding agriculture. In order to re-sell the land for cattle and soybean farming, people seize and clear it.
She says that Brazil showed the world how to deal with it. The new administration launched a campaign against land- grabbing about fifteen years ago.
They started confiscating logs and cows that were being grazed on illegally forested land. The forested areas where indigenous people live are protected.
She says it's possible to see the boundaries of indigenous territories from space because they are very effective forest stewards.
While the policies were in place, Seymour says that the rate of destruction dropped by 80 percent. When a new administration took over, they dropped forest protection as a priority.
Brazil has signed an anti-deforestation pledge. Seymour paused for several seconds when asked if she trusted Brazil's current government to enforce it.
"We would need to see a course correction to have any confidence that this is going to make a difference," she said.
There are ways to end deforestation.
The recipe for protecting forests is more complicated in places where poverty is a factor. In Sub-Saharan Africa, that would be the case.
People are cutting down trees to clear land for their own crops. They need help finding sustainable ways to earn a living and feed themselves, so it would be morally wrong to ban this.
This pledge has some money behind it. A dozen countries, including the U.S., have promised $12 billion over the next four years to support indigenous communities, land restoration and other issues. Private companies have pledged billions of dollars.
Seymour says that she and her fellow activists are having a lot of discussions about how to make sure that pledges lead to meaningful action.
