Some 360 private reserves have been created to protect the forests in the rich Brazilian Atlantic biome, one of the five most endangered in the world. The Mata Atlantica has lost more than 90 percent of the area it covered when Europeans first came to the Americas.
The number and size of protected areas in private hands have grown, but they still lack official recognition and there are no incentives for them, say NGOs. There are more than 375 thousand hectares of privately run reserves in Chile -- a tiny area compared to the 14.1 million hectares under public protection.
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Questions and Answers with La Ley, Café Tacuba, Deepak Chopra, José Saramago and Isabel Allende
