RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's Ministry of Environment announced on Monday that it will propose a plan to protect the Amazon rainforest, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, a senior environmental official said.

Aerial view shows farmland next to the Amazon rainforest in Mato Grosso state August 9, 2005. [Reuters]

Joao Paulo Capobianco, the ministry's secretary of forests and biodiversity said the plan proposes rich nations to put money into a fund that developing countries can tap, after they have proven that they have slowed existing deforestation rates.

"A country will only have the right to claim resources after the environmental benefit is delivered," said Capobianco.

The Amazon rainforest, the world's largest rainforest, is home to about a quarter of all living species on earth.

Capobianco said that slowing the rate of deforestation is a cheap and effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions quickly, which partially causes global warming. Almost 20 per cent of the carbon dioxide comes from forest fires, which are commonly caused by human action.

To get an approval for the plan, Brazil will need the support of other developing countries at the conference, which is being held from November 6-17 in Nairobi, Kenya.