OSLO – Norway has slashed its annual payments to Brazil to protect the Amazon rainforest by 60 percent to $42 million after a rise in forest destruction in 2016, but welcomed signs that losses have slowed this year, Norway’s Environment Ministry said on Friday. Norway makes annual payments to Brazil as part of a long-term billion-dollar program to curb the loss of Amazon rainforest to slow global warming. Forests are a giant store of carbon dioxide, the main man-made greenhouse gas, but are being cut down for logging and to make way for farms. Norway paid 350 million crowns ($42.16 million) for Brazil’s performance in 2016, the ministry said. The payments were down about 60 percent from an average 925 million crowns in the period from 2009-16.