http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56534117Stewardship of mature or old forests does not contribute significantly
to the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol
Stabroek News, Thursday, November 29th 2007
Dear Editor,
The Stabroek News (SN) editorial (Nov 22, 07), "Preparing for the Bali
conference on climate change", discussed some of the challenges facing
the planet with regard to this major issue, and also supported the
notion of incentives for the stewardship of forests as an effective
approach to help in the battle against climate change. Similar views
have consistently been expressed in the newspapers and at conferences
as the position of negotiation for Guyana. However, while the
stewardship of forests is obviously beneficial as an environmental
strategy, stewardship of mature or old forests does not contribute
significantly to the objective of the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol is
geared towards the reduction and stabilization of greenhouse gas
emissions, and mature forests, though they store much carbon, do not
reduce atmospheric carbon. Therefore, they are a weak position for
negotiation in climate change debates-but they can be a strong point
for us in the marketplace and indirectly be linked, not only to climate
change, but to other environmental matters.
Managing forest carbon to mitigate climate change is a complex
business, that requires understanding the entire carbon cycle over long
time periods. There are three specific forest-based strategies often
proposed for mitigating climate change. These are managing for
fast-growing young forests, increasing carbon stored in wood products,
and increasing use of woody biomass fuels. These strategies illustrate
some of the underlying complexities in establishing forest-based
solutions as effective means for climate change mitigation. In the
interest of column space, expanding of these three strategies is not
practical. However, the first two strategies are based on directly
increasing the carbon sequestration of managed forests, while the
latter is focused on replacing fossil fuel with woody biomass based on
the concept of carbon neutrality-carbon sequestered equals carbon
released when burned. Hence, this strategy seeks eligibility for offset
credits if woody biomass were to replace fossil fuel, provided that the
forests are not converted, say to residential or industrial
development. Each strategy is geared towards reducing atmospheric
carbon, but is laced with difficult issues such as tracking the fate of
harvested wood products, which store carbon, accounting for all carbon
flows in young and mature forests, and energy conversion losses and
emissions from harvest and transport, among others. Again, the only
discussion that involves mature forests requires that they be cut down
and replaced by younger, faster growing trees in a managed way. But
this sort of thinking, if it goes unchecked, can encourage
deforestation of pristine areas which provide innumerable ecosystem
functions-hence introducing additional complexities. Nonetheless, the
real question is, "How do these strategies apply to Guyana?" If they
do, "How do we position ourselves to maximize any benefits?" And if
they don't, "What new strategies can we propose to both help the
climate change situation and reap national benefits?" The latter may be
very difficult, but we need to identify stronger positions for
negotiation. However, rainforests constitute the majority of Guyana's
nearly 165,000 square kilometres of natural vegetative cover.
Conserving the mature stock of trees, which is probably the majority,
has the least benefit for the reduction of greenhouse gases and hence
could be expected to receive little to no monetary incentives in this
regard. The logic is simple-the net biomass growth rate slows down in
mature forests and they remove minimal carbon from the atmosphere. It
is young and rapidly growing trees, which store much more carbon in the
process of growth, and therefore reduce the current level of
atmospheric carbon. We have to accept that our mature trees are only
good for other ecosystem functions and durable timber production.
Therefore, in the climate change context, it becomes apparent that the
three forest-based solutions would have little application to Guyana
because we have most of our forests intact as mature trees and slow
rates of deforestation. Take the United States for example; forest
acres and average biomass per forest acre are currently increasing, as
US forests recover from past clearing or heavy harvest. Their forest
carbon stores are growing larger over time. Countries are allowed to
use forest carbon stores to meet some of their emission targets under
Kyoto, but with some restrictions. However, it would seem perverse (to
use the words of the President), that countries that cleared their
forests would receive "incentives" for re-growing them (if this was
indeed the case), when it was the clearing that contributed to climate
change in the first place. Just as perverse though, is expecting to
receive monetary incentives for not clearing trees, which do not reduce
the severity of the climate change situation-however, clearing them
does make the situation worse. I don't think we can hold the world at
ransom asking them to pay us or else we will cut the tress and make
climate change worse. I guess it's unfortunate we didn't clear first so
that we could now attract investors to grow them back-of course I'm
being facetious.
Anyway, awarding monetary incentives for forest stewardship, as
proposed by the President and other groups, is the same as paying
countries with oil reserves to leave them in the ground; and what of
the current oil producing countries? Will they have to halt production
of oil because oil has been implicated as a culprit in greenhouse gas
emissions, which contribute to climate change? The argument is
synonymous with that made in the SN editorial; carbon is stored in oil
reserves and will remain there unless humans utilize oil as a source of
energy. In this sense, oil production is the same as unchecked
deforestation-it releases excessive carbon, which remains in the
atmosphere. The only way to reduce oil production is to shift to
cleaner and cheaper energy sources and implement policies that together
make oil less competitive in the market place.
Therefore, one of the ways Guyana can benefit from having low
deforestation rates and extensive forests is to work towards making
uncontrolled deforestation in other parts of the world appear to be a
negative stigma in trade. For example, we need to market our logs (with
the assistance of NGOs) as coming from a protected zone of the world
where the trees are managed to maintain their ecosystem functions
inclusive of carbon storage, but still provide material for
construction. In the same way, consumers shy away from products
associated with child labour and testing on animals, we must encourage
them to purchase items associated with effective forest management and
conservation. Consumers must know that if they buy wood from countries
that are clearing their forest wildly, they are in essence contributing
to climate change.
Brazil, for example, has an extremely high rate of deforestation and
much of the logging is considered illegal according to reports by
reputable NGOs. Yet, Brazil is rated among the top 10 timber producing
countries in world-preceded only by the USA, China, and India. Those
three names pop up at every climate change debate. However, four of the
UK's bigger sources of timber include Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, and
Cameroon. Brazil has lost 53 million hectares of forests due to logging
alone. Malaysia and Indonesia have lost 72% and 50% of their forest
cover respectively, while half of Cameroon's forests are gone. With
these figures, Guyana should gain a competitive advantage for producing
timber and conserving forest.
Finally, to fully exploit the next rounds of discussion on forest-based
measures, we need to work arduously to ensure that we implement and
enforce replanting strategies, which can then be used as carbon
credits. The aim is to tag our products for specific uses such as
timber piles or industrial or residential construction. If we can work
with importers to ensure that logs tagged for piles, say in harbours,
remain there for 50+ years, then we can essentially account for the
fate of our products. We will become an essential part of the solution
for climate change, rather than sitting back demanding money for
standing forests.
Yours faithfully,
Kofi Dalrymple
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