Bukit Tigapuluh Forest is truly one of those special places. It’s got three endangered species, two minority groups of indigenous people and a superlative: it’s the last remaining stand of tropical lowland forest left on the island of Sumatra.
Funnily enough, it’s also about to be cut down.
Notorious rainforest destroyer Asia Pulp and Paper has cut a road through the forest and is working on getting a concession to convert the forest (containing over 1,000 species of trees) into a tree plantation (containing maybe 2 species).
They’re calling this development.
Nonprofits and businesses around the world are calling it deforestation. Unfortunately, the new forest part of the of the climate change treaty (called REDD) under negotiation this week here in Bangkok may end up calling it carbon savings and subsidizing its destruction.
Only two days into Bangkok, REDD talks have been picking up from the snail’s pace that they were running at in the Bonn sessions earlier this year. Developing countries like India and Brazil have come out with stronger positions that are challenging developed countries to truly make forests a priority in the negotiations, and formerly timid Australia is stepping up to the plate.
But forest definitions remain a problem. As the situation currently stands, the proposed treaty text does not distinguish between intact natural forests (those that humans didn’t plant) and tree plantations. Not only is this a problem from a cultural and biodiversity point of view - since tree plantations don’t provide any of the habitat or cultural benefits of natural forests - it’s a problem from a climate point of view.
Intact natural ecosystems like forests store and absorb massive amounts of carbon, tree plantations, being younger and less diverse, store and absorb significantly less carbon. This equation means that converting forests to plantations is a net loss for the climate, increasing the 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, rather than decreasing it, which is ostensibly, the point of REDD.
Right now, Bangkok is all about setting rules for how the game of REDD will be played. Just like in any sport, we need to know where the goal is and which plays will draw a red card. If the rules aren’t set out clearly, we may end up permanently offsides.
Forest definitions sound geeky, but they really do matter. If a treaty intended to protect forests and the climate can’t save a place like Bukit Tigapuluh, then what are we doing here?
Where things stand on the Copenhagen Accord and international climate politics
Comments
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Billhook Posted 2:06 am
30 Sep 2009
"If REDD can't save this . . . nothing can." Or alternatively,
"If REDD can't save this . . . then what use is REDD?"
The latter makes more sense to me, since REDD is plainly failing to develop a sustainable regime of forest management, whereas a regime that integrated liability for emissions from forest clearance into nations' overall carbon liabilities could function effectively.
There are numerous further weaknesses of REDD that need urgently to be explored before the agribusiness & logging corporations turn it into their desired fig-leaf.
First, how is liability for the proposed annual protection money to be allocated among wealthy nations ?
Second, how are future govt.s to be held to their obligations (as payers or recipients) - given forests' utility during the coming oil, climate and food supply shocks with their massively destabilizing potential ?
Third, who will pay northern govt.s not to erase their remaining forests if REDD somehow succeeded in ending tropical lumber supply and prices surge accordingly ?
You may be amused to read that some of our forests here in Wales are protected to the absurd point that their owners may not even collect firewood in them, let alone harvest the fine oaks that are going past their prime. By ministry edict they must be left to fall and rot. The result is that when people need hardwoods, they go to the merchants and buy tropical.
Somewhere down the road the fundamental weakness of REDD's approach will be recognized : that tropical nations' claiming annual fees for "forestry foregone" patently lacks stability; particularly in comparison with the integrated approach of nations having more of their treaty allocation of emission-permits to trade if they've not been clearing old forest.
The idea of "sling a fence round it and call it saved" may have been appealing to NGOs like R.A.N. back in the '80s & '90s, but in real life it looks increasingly incompetent.
Regards,
Billhook
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Margaret Swink Posted 5:42 am
01 Oct 2009
You're right, the second meaning you point out is the intended one. The proposed REDD treaty text is currently quickly shifting, but, it does have a lot of possible pitfalls, including those you mention.
RAN (and lots of other environmental groups) are not intending to as you say, "sling a fence round it and call it saved". Rather, we're actively calling for REDD to focus on indigenous land rights and tenures as a central part of the treaty. Since an estimated 1.6 billion people in developing countries are dependent on forests for their basic needs and livelihoods, REDD must directly benefit local communities and Indigenous peoples and respect their rights and tenure.
Industrial interests calling for things that are called "sustainable forest management" but really aren't could indeed compromise REDD, which is why we need to return to the basics of REDD as a means to protect forests like Bukit Tigapuluh, not to pursue policies and language that further commoditizes trees as "carbon stocks."
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