Tropical Forests guide
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| Primary forest, Brazil, CFU000553 © Roberto Faidutti / FAO |
After decades of ineffective endeavour to halt the destruction of tropical forests, the urgency surrounding climate change has created opportunities to embed deforestation targets within international commitments on emissions. However, campaigners are concerned that current proposals overlook the oldest lesson of all – that deforestation cannot be controlled without engaging the needs of people living in the forest regions.
updated November 2009
The Value of Tropical Forests
The tropical forest is the jewel in the crown of the biosphere. No other ecosystem delivers more to enrich the natural resources that support life on earth.
The multiple attributes of the forest include its role as a carbon sink through photosynthesis, as a direct influence on local and global climate through respiration, as a medium for water storage and filtration through root structure, and as a protector of soil quality and quantity, and species biodiversity. International anxiety over the degradation of the Mau forest in Kenya illustrates the severe impact of deforestation on a regional economy.
Tropical forests are identified not just by geography (located between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer) but by their status as undisturbed primary rainforest. Regenerated forests and managed plantations have value, especially as stores of carbon, but their assets do not compare with the awe-inspiring and unique ecosystem of the canopied rainforest. One hectare of Amazon rainforest can contain more plant species than the whole of Europe.
This richness enables people to derive livelihoods from the forests. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 60 million indigenous people live within tropical rainforests, being wholly dependent on them. Much larger numbers live in the forest vicinity, with some degree of dependency.
This impressive checklist of services to humanity has not protected the tropical forests from rapacious destruction. Whilst forest coverage in non-tropical areas is recovering, satellite studies show that the global area of tropical forests was reduced by 2.36% between 2000 and 2005, almost 150 square kilometers every day. The current rate of extinction of plant and animal species through deforestation is believed to be 1000 times greater than that in pre-human history.
Causes of Deforestation
The root cause of deforestation is the failure of the world’s market economy to award any value to this inventory of assets of the rainforest. This malfunction contrasts with the rocketing prices of timber, minerals, fossil fuels, meat, cosmetics and biofuels, each of which involves destruction of the forest.
The response to these market forces varies in every forest country. For example, the dominant drivers of deforestation in South America are cattle ranching and soy agriculture whereas palm oil plantations are the main culprit in Southeast Asia.
Poverty also exerts forces which cause deforestation. This is most apparent in small scale farming in Africa where energy needs can be met only by gathering wood. But these are modest factors in comparison with commercial interests which overwhelm weak governance typical of developing countries, where corruption and poor law enforcement can be exploited. Without secure tenure to their own lands, forest dwellers are too easily brushed aside by powerful individuals or corporations.
In Cambodia, even the most senior politicians have been accused by Global Witness of involvement in illegal timber business for their personal benefit. In Papua New Guinea, all logging is believed to be illegal. About half of the deforestation during the 2000-2005 period occurred in Brazil which is home to 40% of the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world. In Africa attention will focus on The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which embraces about 50% of the vast Congo Basin rainforest and is currently embroiled in negotiations for logging licences.
International Negligence
International agreements on sustainable development have neglected the plight of tropical forests and the people who live there. The Millennium Development Goals include a single indicator (number 25) which calls vaguely to reverse the loss of "land area covered by forest". The current international agreement dealing with climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, is equally ineffective. Whilst all countries are committed to "promote sustainable management" of forests under the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, binding commitments to emissions reductions apply only to those from the wealthy higher latitudes. The tropical forests are located elsewhere.
The result is that national poverty reduction strategies, together with the development aid that supports them, tend to exclude forest programmes. The UN Forum for Forests (UNFF), the global body responsible for driving forward the "management, conservation and sustainable development" of forests, has succeeded only in securing a non-legally binding international agreement on forest sustainability.
Consumer Campaigns
Pressure from international consumer campaigns has brought some success in protecting the rainforests. Major traders in Brazil have agreed on a moratorium in purchasing beef or soy products that originate in forest regions. The 2008 US Farm Bill includes the world’s first law banning the import or purchase of illegal timber and the European Union is negotiating bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with timber-producing countries.
There is greater resolve of multinational retailers to monitor suppliers, and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) trademark is a widely recognised label for sustainable timber products. It involves working relationships between forest campaigners, logging companies, local community groups and retailers.
Nevertheless, in general the rich countries have made inadequate efforts to develop and respect certification schemes which validate the source of a timber product. Less than 2% of the world’s tropical forest is certified as sustainable. Most imported tropical timber is illegally harvested. Attempts to establish standards for the booming market in palm oil products have failed to make any meaningful headway.
Climate Change and Deforestation
A real prospect of ending this track record of ineffective global action has been generated by the increasing alarm about the impact of climate change. Figures published in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that deforestation contributes 17.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire world transport system. Coincidentally, the standing forests absorb carbon dioxide of almost identical amount, a reminder that deforestation removes this important future capacity as well as releasing emissions.
Destruction of the rainforest releases carbon dioxide through disturbing the substantial residue of carbon in the soil, the decay of leaves and wood, and combustion in "slash and burn" forest clearance. Whilst timber products store carbon, the amounts are small relative to these emission sources. The intensity of forest-related emissions is illustrated by Indonesia whose rate of deforestation has propelled the country into the world’s top three emitters of greenhouse gases, despite its relatively modest industrialisation.
Science is still evolving on the threat of a feedback loop - the impact a warming planet might have on tropical forests. Studies suggest that the two degree temperature rise implied by climate negotiations will stress the Amazon rainforest through dryness, and diminish its biodiversity. Higher temperatures could ultimately transform the forest into a dry savannah. Such nightmare prospects have hastened the consensus that the fight against climate change cannot succeed without finding a way to protect the forests.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation
The key to achieving this goal, now described as “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation” (REDD), is to create an environment in which the forests have greater value standing than cut down. The 2007 Bali Climate Change Conference authorised investigation into financial compensation for developing countries for the loss of revenue resulting from preservation of their forest cover.
All parties appear supportive of this broad approach. It seems likely that a strategy to implement REDD will be a prominent feature of any international climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. However, almost every detail of REDD is fraught with difficulty, adding to risks of delay in climate negotiations.
The issue of greatest concern to environmentalists is the prospect of rewarding activities which might include an element of logging or which equate forest regeneration and plantation with the value of primary rainforest. Low impact logging and replanting is often presented by the timber industry as "sustainable forest management." The precise scope of REDD is therefore contentious.
For donor governments, wary of years of disappointing outcomes to aid for deforestation, the central issue is verification of results. They will seek clear evidence that deforestation has not occurred, either in the recipient country or deflected elsewhere through “leakage”. They also want to be sure that the protection represents real change (additionality) and that it remains permanent.
There are further worries about the moral hazard of rewarding the cessation of an activity which is often already illegal. And it is unclear how to compensate those countries, such as Costa Rica, which have already brought deforestation under reasonable control.
The science of measuring forest inventory for the purpose of baseline and progress evaluation is embryonic and difficult. Rainforest countries vary considerably in their institutional capacity and standards of governance necessary to convince the donors. No single prescription can apply to all.
The most likely outcome would involve an initial phase of capacity building to “get ready for REDD”, combined with pilot projects to explore the logistical issues. To an extent this process is already under way, led by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the UN-REDD Programme, Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative and many other REDD initiatives.
REDD Finance
Tentative targets suggested by the UN envisage a 25% cut in the rate of deforestation by 2015, costing around $15 billion pa, about 15% of current foreign aid budgets. Brazil has pledged to halve deforestation in the Amazon by 2020.
The cost of delay is very significant. The influential Review on the Economics of Climate Change prepared by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government pointed out that, if worldwide deforestation remains unchecked, its carbon emissions for the years 2008-2012 alone would exceed those of the entire history of aviation up to the year 2025. Stern also concluded that addressing deforestation is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways of tackling climate change, quite apart from its contribution to poverty reduction and biodiversity.
Whilst this assessment is not disputed, the mechanism for financing REDD is more problematic. In return for their payments, governments and the private sector will expect to be granted carbon credits which could be offset against their emissions targets.
Finance through carbon markets, as opposed to taxation and aid, is unpopular with climate activists. Groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace argue that offsets allow “business as usual” consumption and that the disgraced traders of the banking sector should not be entrusted with climate change mechanisms. There are also technical difficulties in merging the value of forest credits with existing carbon markets. In this context the European Union has decided that REDD credits will not be accepted in the European Carbon Trading Scheme until 2020.
The disadvantage of relying on aid to finance REDD is that donor countries will fail to commit to sufficient funds to save the forests. The outcome may therefore see a combination of both public and private sector approaches.
Rights and Sustainability
The World Bank’s FCPF has already been criticised for failing to observe the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A rights-based approach to REDD funding would target aid to forest communities, seeking a basis for sustainable livelihoods. This involves support for secure land rights and for regional infrastructure for marketing small-scale timber or non-timber forest produce.
Priority for community forestry would also offer greater protection against mineral extraction projects - oil and gas exploration in the Western Amazon provides the most controversial example. The Comisea gas pipeline in Peru cuts through a national reserve, overriding protection of the rights of indigenous people. Clearing forest for pipelines or roads fractures the sensitive ecosystem and weakens resistance to clearance for agriculture.
Concerns for indigenous rights and for halting deforestation must however recognise that forest countries are entitled to seek long term economic models for their assets. A progressive national strategy may therefore concentrate on recognising the different forest stakeholders and aligning their rights and responsibilities to create mutual interest in forest sustainability. For example, in Liberia, where the opportunity has arisen for a fresh start after years of collapse, the government has divided forest resources into three categories, for forest communities, for protected areas, and for commercial logging with obligations to invest a share of profits in local services.
Nevertheless, a truly sustainable model for tropical forest management remains elusive and many campaigners prefer to advocate zero logging for the immediate future.
The tropical forest is the jewel in the crown of the biosphere. No other ecosystem delivers more to enrich the natural resources that support life on earth.
|
| Guarana fruit, Brazilian forest, CFU000522 © Roberto Faidutti / FAO |
Tropical forests are identified not just by geography (located between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer) but by their status as undisturbed primary rainforest. Regenerated forests and managed plantations have value, especially as stores of carbon, but their assets do not compare with the awe-inspiring and unique ecosystem of the canopied rainforest. One hectare of Amazon rainforest can contain more plant species than the whole of Europe.
This richness enables people to derive livelihoods from the forests. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 60 million indigenous people live within tropical rainforests, being wholly dependent on them. Much larger numbers live in the forest vicinity, with some degree of dependency.
This impressive checklist of services to humanity has not protected the tropical forests from rapacious destruction. Whilst forest coverage in non-tropical areas is recovering, satellite studies show that the global area of tropical forests was reduced by 2.36% between 2000 and 2005, almost 150 square kilometers every day. The current rate of extinction of plant and animal species through deforestation is believed to be 1000 times greater than that in pre-human history.
Causes of Deforestation
|
| Log barge, Indonesia, FO-5709 © Patrick Durst / FAO |
The response to these market forces varies in every forest country. For example, the dominant drivers of deforestation in South America are cattle ranching and soy agriculture whereas palm oil plantations are the main culprit in Southeast Asia.
Poverty also exerts forces which cause deforestation. This is most apparent in small scale farming in Africa where energy needs can be met only by gathering wood. But these are modest factors in comparison with commercial interests which overwhelm weak governance typical of developing countries, where corruption and poor law enforcement can be exploited. Without secure tenure to their own lands, forest dwellers are too easily brushed aside by powerful individuals or corporations.
In Cambodia, even the most senior politicians have been accused by Global Witness of involvement in illegal timber business for their personal benefit. In Papua New Guinea, all logging is believed to be illegal. About half of the deforestation during the 2000-2005 period occurred in Brazil which is home to 40% of the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world. In Africa attention will focus on The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which embraces about 50% of the vast Congo Basin rainforest and is currently embroiled in negotiations for logging licences.
International Negligence
International agreements on sustainable development have neglected the plight of tropical forests and the people who live there. The Millennium Development Goals include a single indicator (number 25) which calls vaguely to reverse the loss of "land area covered by forest". The current international agreement dealing with climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, is equally ineffective. Whilst all countries are committed to "promote sustainable management" of forests under the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, binding commitments to emissions reductions apply only to those from the wealthy higher latitudes. The tropical forests are located elsewhere.
The result is that national poverty reduction strategies, together with the development aid that supports them, tend to exclude forest programmes. The UN Forum for Forests (UNFF), the global body responsible for driving forward the "management, conservation and sustainable development" of forests, has succeeded only in securing a non-legally binding international agreement on forest sustainability.
Consumer Campaigns
Pressure from international consumer campaigns has brought some success in protecting the rainforests. Major traders in Brazil have agreed on a moratorium in purchasing beef or soy products that originate in forest regions. The 2008 US Farm Bill includes the world’s first law banning the import or purchase of illegal timber and the European Union is negotiating bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with timber-producing countries.
|
Nevertheless, in general the rich countries have made inadequate efforts to develop and respect certification schemes which validate the source of a timber product. Less than 2% of the world’s tropical forest is certified as sustainable. Most imported tropical timber is illegally harvested. Attempts to establish standards for the booming market in palm oil products have failed to make any meaningful headway.
Climate Change and Deforestation
A real prospect of ending this track record of ineffective global action has been generated by the increasing alarm about the impact of climate change. Figures published in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that deforestation contributes 17.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire world transport system. Coincidentally, the standing forests absorb carbon dioxide of almost identical amount, a reminder that deforestation removes this important future capacity as well as releasing emissions.
|
| Forest burning for pasture, Central African Republic, CFU000204 © Roberto Faidutti / FAO |
Science is still evolving on the threat of a feedback loop - the impact a warming planet might have on tropical forests. Studies suggest that the two degree temperature rise implied by climate negotiations will stress the Amazon rainforest through dryness, and diminish its biodiversity. Higher temperatures could ultimately transform the forest into a dry savannah. Such nightmare prospects have hastened the consensus that the fight against climate change cannot succeed without finding a way to protect the forests.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation
|
| Phaeomeria Magnifica, Brazilian forest, CFU000507 © Roberto Faidutti / FAO |
All parties appear supportive of this broad approach. It seems likely that a strategy to implement REDD will be a prominent feature of any international climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. However, almost every detail of REDD is fraught with difficulty, adding to risks of delay in climate negotiations.
The issue of greatest concern to environmentalists is the prospect of rewarding activities which might include an element of logging or which equate forest regeneration and plantation with the value of primary rainforest. Low impact logging and replanting is often presented by the timber industry as "sustainable forest management." The precise scope of REDD is therefore contentious.
For donor governments, wary of years of disappointing outcomes to aid for deforestation, the central issue is verification of results. They will seek clear evidence that deforestation has not occurred, either in the recipient country or deflected elsewhere through “leakage”. They also want to be sure that the protection represents real change (additionality) and that it remains permanent.
There are further worries about the moral hazard of rewarding the cessation of an activity which is often already illegal. And it is unclear how to compensate those countries, such as Costa Rica, which have already brought deforestation under reasonable control.
The science of measuring forest inventory for the purpose of baseline and progress evaluation is embryonic and difficult. Rainforest countries vary considerably in their institutional capacity and standards of governance necessary to convince the donors. No single prescription can apply to all.
The most likely outcome would involve an initial phase of capacity building to “get ready for REDD”, combined with pilot projects to explore the logistical issues. To an extent this process is already under way, led by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the UN-REDD Programme, Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative and many other REDD initiatives.
REDD Finance
|
| Deforestation for soy production, Brazil © Greenpeace International |
The cost of delay is very significant. The influential Review on the Economics of Climate Change prepared by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government pointed out that, if worldwide deforestation remains unchecked, its carbon emissions for the years 2008-2012 alone would exceed those of the entire history of aviation up to the year 2025. Stern also concluded that addressing deforestation is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways of tackling climate change, quite apart from its contribution to poverty reduction and biodiversity.
Whilst this assessment is not disputed, the mechanism for financing REDD is more problematic. In return for their payments, governments and the private sector will expect to be granted carbon credits which could be offset against their emissions targets.
Finance through carbon markets, as opposed to taxation and aid, is unpopular with climate activists. Groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace argue that offsets allow “business as usual” consumption and that the disgraced traders of the banking sector should not be entrusted with climate change mechanisms. There are also technical difficulties in merging the value of forest credits with existing carbon markets. In this context the European Union has decided that REDD credits will not be accepted in the European Carbon Trading Scheme until 2020.
The disadvantage of relying on aid to finance REDD is that donor countries will fail to commit to sufficient funds to save the forests. The outcome may therefore see a combination of both public and private sector approaches.
Rights and Sustainability
|
| Camisea pipeline scars rainforest © Amazon Watch |
Priority for community forestry would also offer greater protection against mineral extraction projects - oil and gas exploration in the Western Amazon provides the most controversial example. The Comisea gas pipeline in Peru cuts through a national reserve, overriding protection of the rights of indigenous people. Clearing forest for pipelines or roads fractures the sensitive ecosystem and weakens resistance to clearance for agriculture.
|
| Forest medicine, Senegal, CFU000354 © Roberto Faidutti / FAO |
Nevertheless, a truly sustainable model for tropical forest management remains elusive and many campaigners prefer to advocate zero logging for the immediate future.
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