BRAZILIAN authorities said on Tuesday that it will offer cash rewards to municipalities to help in the battle against the deforestation of the Amazon.

During the country’s Amazon Day, President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva also signed off the creation of two indigenous territories that total 511,000 acres and a network of conservation areas next to the Yanomami Indigenous Territory to act as a buffer against invaders such as illegal gold miners.

Lula told a ceremony in Brasilia: “The Amazon is in a hurry to survive the devastation caused by those few people who refuse to see the future, who in a few years cut down, burned, and polluted what nature took millennia to create.

“The Amazon is in a hurry to continue doing what it has always done, to be essential for life on Earth.”

The new programme will invest up to $120 million in technical assistance. 

The money will be allocated based on the performance of the municipality in reducing deforestation and fires, as measured by official satellite monitoring. 

The government intends to publish an annual list of the municipalities eligible to receive funds.

The resources must be invested in land titling, monitoring and control of deforestation and fires, and sustainable production.

The money will come from the Amazon Fund, which has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway with some funds from the United States, to help pay for sustainable development of the region. 

The most critical municipalities are located along the arc of deforestation, a vast region along the southern part of the Amazon. 

This region is a stronghold of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who favoured agribusiness over forest preservation and lost the re-election last year.

“We believe that it's not enough to just put up a sign saying ‘it’s forbidden to do this or that. We need to be persuasive,” Lula said, in a reference to his relationship with Amazon mayors and state governors.

Lula has promised zero net deforestation by 2030, and in the first seven months of his presidential term there was a 42 per cent drop in deforestation.

Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, with almost 3 per cent of global emissions, according to Climate Watch, an online platform managed by World Resources Institute. 

Almost half of these emissions come from deforestation. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, Brazil committed to reducing carbon emissions by 37 per cent by 2025 and 43 per cent by 2030.