United Nations Study Finds Improvements in the World's Forests

The Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently presented its biannual report on the State of the World's Forests, which found that most countries in Europe and North America have reversed centuries of deforestation.

In its March 2007 report, the FAO noted that economic prosperity and careful forest stewardship have had positive effects on the world's forests, with many forests showing a net increase in forest area.

But forests in poorer nations, and those embroiled in wars and internal conflicts, still face substantial threats. Around 13 million hectares of forest are still lost annually to other land uses. However, the net deforestation over the last five years has been reduced from nine to seven million hectares. This is mainly due to reforestation and preservation of existing forests.

Africa is one region that faces huge losses. The continent accounts for about 16 percent of the global forests. Between 1990 and 2005, Africa lost over nine percent of its trees.

On the positive side, forest area increased in Asia between 2000 and 2005. While severe deforestation continues in South-East Asia, especially Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, there were tremendous increases in forested areas in China, Vietnam and a number of smaller countries.

One of the principal causes of deforestation is the conversion of land for farming or livestock. Forests currently cover about 30 percent of the world's land area. According to the FAO the world lost three percent of its forests between 1995 and 2000.

Source:
VOA News

World Bank Proposes Carbon Trading to Save Rainforests

The World Bank says rapidly diminishing tropical forests could be saved if farmers and loggers were paid not to cut the trees. It proposes to extend the current international system of carbon trading for this purpose because it says the trees are worth much more to the world standing.

Rainforests are thought to hold more than half of the world's plant and animal species and store an immense amount of the planet's carbon. But the World Bank says these woodlands are disappearing at a rate of five percent per decade at the hands of farmers, loggers, and others seeking to use the land and its lush growth for profit - or mere survival. That is an area the size of Portugal lost every year.

A new World Bank report says burning and rotting wood after deforestation releases one-fifth of Earth's annual emissions of carbon dioxide, twice the amount from all motor vehicles.

"So It's a major contributor to global warming, a major threat to global biodiversity, and there are a host of local environmental damages - health threatening smog, stream polluting sediment, and the like," says Kenneth Chomitz, who wrote the World Bank report, a series of recommendations to slow deforestation. "There is now a chance on the policy horizon to mobilize new incentives to conserve forests, to keep forests standing."

The World Bank's main recommendation is to use the world's carbon market to reduce rain forest loss. At present, the market operates to reduce carbon emissions from industry and other sources. Nations and companies that emit more carbon than a predetermined limit buy credits from projects that reduce emissions.

The International Emissions Trading Association says the global carbon market has grown very rapidly and is worth $22 billion, twice its 2005 value.

But the concept is not yet used to preserve forests, as World Bank chief economist Francois Bourguignon points out.

"Today, it is possible to obtain carbon funds for forestation," he said. "Now, the paradox is that when you cut the forests, you are not penalized for doing that and you are not getting any money when you keep the trees standing."

The World Bank proposes to change that to benefit the 800 million people who depend on tropical forests for their livelihood. Kenneth Chomitz says it makes no sense for a farmer to cut a hectare of rainforest to create a pasture worth $300 when the cleared trees release $7,500 worth of carbon based on an approximate current market value of $1,500 a ton.

If tropical forest preservation were included in the carbon trading scheme, the farmer could receive the $7,500 from polluters and earn 25 times the agricultural value of the pasture.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could get the farmer and the industrialist or utility owner sitting at the same table, figuring out how they can split the difference and make themselves both better off," said Chomitz.

But Chomitz says a carbon financing system could set off a disruptive race for property rights, a race that would favor the wealthy. So his report recommends that developing nations assign ownership and land use rights equitably in a manner that can be monitored publicly.

At the Ford Foundation, a U.S. philanthropy, environment and development official David Kaimowitz praises the World Bank report, but says it ignores some strategies that would improve the livelihoods of forest dwellers.

These include the need for governments to make rainforest safer by reasserting their domain and clearing them of bandits and drug dealers. Kaimowitz also says the bank should devote more attention to helping those who depend on or near forests develop small businesses.

"One of the three main pillars of the 2004 World Bank forestry strategy is precisely to harness forest resources to reduce rural poverty," he said."But if we look at the bank's current portfolio, the reality is there is a surprisingly few number of projects that are, in fact, focused on using forest resources to reduce rural poverty."

But Kaimowitz calls the World Bank's carbon trading scheme and other forest-saving proposals useful and says he hopes they actually guide its strategies.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: David McAlary
First published: October 30, 2006

Planting Bamboo Helps Slow Deforestation

Scientists may have found a way to slow deforestation. Fast growing bamboo can help quickly replenish a forest stripped of timber.

Forests are shrinking globally as people in developing nations seek wood for fuel and more land for farming. The Worldwatch Institute in Washington says Earth has lost one percent of its woodlands in the past five years, an area about the size of Germany.

Ecologists say the environmental damage is alarming. Overlogging and failure to replant cause widespread soil erosion and loss of wildlife habitat.

Deforestation also affects global climate. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Burning trees and rotting wood left by loggers are thought to add to global warming by emitting more of the gas into the atmosphere, where it traps the sun's heat.

Experts say the loss of forests will continue unless alternatives to wood are found.

"Most of the forested areas have gone down by 70 to 90 percent, so we need a sustainable form of farming timber," said water specialist, Chin Ong, at the International Center for Research in Agroforestry in Nairobi, Kenya.

He says one promising substitute for wood is bamboo, a grass with a tree-like appearance. Some varieties grow more than 25 meters tall and 20 centimeters thick.

Ong points out that bamboo can be grown all over the world and has advantages over timber. One is its speedy growth.

"You can harvest after three or four years and then every year after that because it is a grass," he explained. "So when you cut a bamboo down, it will produce another shoot and it is ready for harvest in one or two years. Whereas if you grow a eucalyptus tree, you need five to 10 years before you can harvest again. Another reason is that bamboo has a very high water use efficiency, which is double that of any tree species."

Ong says the plants can be an additional cash crop in areas where sugar cane and coffee are already established. He estimates that in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, as many as 150 million people can benefit economically.

Plant biologist David Midmore of the Central Queensland University in Australia says bamboo also has environmental benefits.

"In Taiwan, bamboo is grown on the hillsides along the edge of the mountains and it is sustainably harvested for its shoots and for its timber, and it is an environmentally friendly species because it is also preventing any erosion," he noted.

Midmore says bamboo shoots are also an important source of nutrition and can withstand harsh climates.

"It is one of the few species that will produce during typhoons, whereas most vegetable species will get blown away or washed away or rot," he added. "Bamboo shoots continue to thrive in hot and wet conditions."

In addition to providing lumber and food, bamboo plants can clean the environment. Chin Ong is studying how bamboo groves could remove toxins from dirty waters.

"We have been analyzing what are the heavy metals that can be removed by bamboo species," he explained. "The bamboo species behave very similarly to papyrus, with natural vegetation to wetlands in this region. So they take up all these heavy metals and they can clean the water."

Ong says there is an unfulfilled potential for bamboo to protect forests and improve agriculture.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Frank Ling
First published: August 29, 2006