Brazil and the United States signed a deal Thursday to use 21 million U.S. dollars of debt payment owed by Brazil to the United States for the conservation of tropical forests.

The investment will be made over the next five years in projects covering the Atlantic coastal rainforest and the Cerrado and Caatinga ecosystems in Brazil, the Ministry of Environment said.

The Brazilian Amazon was not included as there are other funds for the preservation of the region, Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said.

Brazil owed the 21 million dollars to the United States over the next five years in development debt contracted half a century ago.

The first installment, amounting to six million dollars, will be issued in October. It will be used for projects coordinated by a nine-member committee, with one of the committee members from the U.S. Agency for International Development, a government unit established in the early 1960s to hand out development assistance to U.S. allies.

The agreement was concluded under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of 1998. The United States has made 15 other such deals worth a total of 239 million dollars.