More criticism of planned
APD increase

The head of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said Monday that the planned increase in the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) will hinder efforts to reduce poverty in developing countries.

The APD could be increased by up to 112 percent next year.

Jean-Claude Baumgarten, chief executive of the WTTC, accused the UK government of “underestimating the economic importance of travel and tourism”.

However he said his organisation endorsed the government’s decision to review the level of duty proposed for travel to the Caribbean.

“It is based on an illogical system of bands that means travellers will pay a lower tax to travel to many points of the USA that are much farther from London than any island in the Caribbean,” Mr Baumgarten said.

Need to reduce deforestation

The UK’s Minister for Energy and Climate change says reducing levels of deforestation will be critical to a successful outcome of the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen later this year.

Minister Ed Miliband was speaking during a visit to one of Brazil’s best known indigenous communities in the south of the Amazon rain forest.

Leaders from several different tribes in the Xingu Indigenous Park spoke of the impact deforestation and changes in their local environment were having on their livelihoods.