Climate Change, Carbon and Forests: Exploring the Connections

The Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change recognises forestry and land use change as important sinks or sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Among the activities that may reduce emissions are afforestation and reforestation, low-impact logging, forest conservation and improved forest management.

     In 2000, CIFOR scientists and their research partners provided information on forest carbon issues to the Convention’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA). They also contributed significantly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, which is the most authoritative publication so far on thetopic.

      A major topic of consideration at the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the climate change agreement (COP-6), held in November in The Hague, was whether forestry and land use change projects should be eligible under a measure of the Kyoto Protocol known as the Clean Development Mechanism. It would allow developed countries that are party to the climate change convention to purchase carbon ‘credits’ from selected projects in developing countries.

      In February, CIFOR and the University of Maryland held a workshop in Bellagio, Italy, to consider the opportunities and risks that local communities could face under projects proposed under the Kyoto Protocol. Following their weeklong discussions, the two dozen participants from 12 countries prepared two policy briefs urging negotiators to shape the Clean Development Mechanism so that it would increase economic opportunities for local communities and not harm the livelihoods of people in areas where the projects would be implemented. The briefs were widely circulated at SBSTTA and COP-6 meetings.

      CIFOR scientists also participated in several presentations at COP-6 on land use change and forestry. All the public sessions drew standing room-only audiences, with Ministers and other key negotiators among the attendees. CIFOR distributed policy briefs on carbon leakage and local livelihoods. Although COP-6 failed to reach agreement on what, if any, forestry activities should be included in the Clean Development Mechanism, the forum provided an important opportunity to disseminate science-based information on the issues discussed at the meetings.

An Influential Voice in Strategies for Biodiversity Conservation

The work of CIFOR’s Biodiversity Conservation Programme is linked closely with issues of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the deliberations of its implementing body, the Conference of the Parties. The Convention, with 180 signatories so far, is shaping the international agenda on action to conserve and promote sustainable use of the earth’s plants, animals and microorganisms and their habitats.

            CIFOR has played a central role in Convention-related efforts to develop criteria and indicators for assessing the changing status of biodiversity in a given area and to ensure the conservation of forest-based biodiversity.

            In 2000, CIFOR continued to provide expert advice to the Convention’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) and to officials of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a financial mechanism designed to support countries’ efforts to implement biodiversity conservation and other environmental programmes.

            In many tropical countries, natural forests are an important source of timber needed for revenue and national development. Recognising that such forests are not likely to be set aside for conservation, CIFOR and others have been urging the Secretariat of the GEF to expand the measure’s provisions to encompass biodiversity conservation in production forests as well as in protected areas. Thanks to a convincing report prepared by CIFOR and the International Union of Forest Research Organisations, GEF policy makers are considering the possibility.

            CIFOR is also working with GEF officials to develop policies and innovative approaches for conservation and sustainable use of forest biodiversity. Among the issues of interest are how to enlist the support of the private sector in biodiversity conservation in production forests and to integrate biodiversity protection with timber certification programmes.

The sixth session of the parties to the Biodiversity Convention is expected to focus heavily on issues of biological diversity in forests. At the urging of CIFOR and the Convention’s Secretariat, an Ad Hoc Working Group on Forest Biodiversity was formed and is now preparing information for the upcoming session. CIFOR and the Secretariat are also developing a joint work programme on issues of forest biodiversity. Expertise will come from CIFOR’s research programmes on issues such as:

• The effects of uncontrolled fires on forest diversity and how damage from such fires can be reduced

• Strategies for sustainable harvesting of non-timber forest resources

• How forest stakeholders can play a role in the assessment of forest conditions and help address threats to biodiversity

• Aspects of biodiversity relevant to climate change

Making Loggers Willing Partners in Wildlife Conservation

Logging is one of the biggest threats to wildlife, both directly and indirectly. Logging and the roads it opens into the forest make animals more easily accessible to hunters, who kill ‘bushmeat’ for their own consumption and to sell in urban markets. As species are wiped out, habitats change permanently, affecting the larger forest ecosystem.

            In the Congo Basin, a series of pilot activities involving private logging companies and conservation NGOs has been underway to seek ways of reducing the threat that logging poses to the region’s wildlife. The forests of the Congo Basin are the second largest block of tropical rainforest on Earth. Gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, mandrills, black colobus monkeys and sun-tailed guenons are among the prized species that live there. Yet, only about 10 percent of the region’s forests are designated as Protected Areas, while timber concessions are extensive.

            In November, CIFOR co-sponsored a workshop at the Lopé Reserve in Gabon to review the findings of the pilot activities. The 40 participants came from the logging industry, government, the donor community and NGOs.

            They learned that so far, the results are promising. Loggers and the private companies they work for have shown they are willing to support wildlife protection so long as timber extraction remains economically competitive. The companies want assurances, however, that any hunting regulations or other policies on wildlife management are applied equally to all timber concessions so no one has an unfair advantage. Other measures found to be helpful include posting ‘ecoguards’ at timber concession boundaries, employing a code of conduct with sanctions and incentives to modify employee behaviour and providing logging company employees with alternative sources of protein.

            Robert Nasi, who heads CIFOR’s Biodiversity Conservation Programme, and Caroline Tutin of Centre International de Recherches Médicale de Franceville organised the workshop under the auspices of Association pour le Développement de l’Information Environnementale in the Congo. Nasi says such a meeting—at which many different groups found common ground—would not have been possible five years ago. He attributes the turnaround to changing attitudes on the part of both industry and the conservation movement.

            ‘There is growing concern among private companies about the possibility of consumer boycotts for unsustainable harvesting of timber and other products’, he explains. ‘At the same time, NGOs are increasingly taking the position that if conservation programmes are to succeed, they must be developed and implemented with the support of private companies and local people whose livelihoods depend on the outcome’.

            The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Inter-African Forest Industry Association are also partners in the initiative, which has been funded by Conservation International, the U.S. Forest Service, World Wild Fund for Nature, Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial, the World Bank Institute and the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force.

Policy Research Challenges the World Bank’s Way of Doing Business

Given the vast scope of its lending and development activities, the World Bank has a considerable influence on environmental conditions around the world. In an effort to insure that its policies do not promote deforestation in the developing countries where it operates, the Bank adopted a strategy in 1991 spelling out its commitment to averting forest damage and loss. Early in 2000, the Bank acknowledged that the policy did not succeed as planned.

            The admission came after an extensive internal review of the Bank’s implementation of its 1991 forest policy. During their analysis, the reviewers from the Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department (OED) sought insight from scientists in CIFOR’s Underlying Causes of Deforestation Programme, which investigates the impacts on forests from extra-sectoral influences such as macroeconomic policies, agricultural patterns and land tenure policies, and infrastructure development. Subsequently, the OED report concluded that the Bank had not adequately considered how its lending activities in non-forestry sectors may have contributed indirectly to deforestation.

            The OED review also took a critical look at the Bank’s use of conditionality to achieve forestry reform. The analysis was based on case studies in several countries, including Indonesia and Cameroon. Again CIFOR was consulted, because of its extensive research in those countries, and the centre’s findings were widely cited in the panel’s reports.

            In April, CIFOR and the U.K.’s Department for International Development drew on the findings of the OED review to stimulate a wide-ranging dialogue in Indonesia on proposed reforms of the country’s management of its forests, which are disappearing by an estimated 1.3 million hectares per year. The heavily attended forum at CIFOR attracted representatives of the Ministry of Forestry, the private sector, environmental organisations, donors and local NGOs.

            Two authors of the OED review were among the panelists. In their remarks, they said the Bank had missed an opportunity to exercise its influence in seeking forestry reforms in Indonesia, which is one of the World Bank’s largestborrowers.

            Government officials said systemic problems in Indonesia’s forestry sector have undermined repeated attempts to achieve reforms. They contended that the Bank’s forest protection policy was unworkable in Indonesia because it was at odds with the country’s laws and ‘national realities’.

            Although the participants represented a broad range of different interests, they concurred that fundamental changes in Indonesia’s forest management policies are needed and discussed a number of proposed remedies. The highly successful event provided a strong foundation for open and ongoing dialogue on the issue of forestry reform in Indonesia.

Seeking Ways to Finance Sustainable Forest Management in Developing Countries

Among the recommendations emanating from the Earth Summit nearly a decade ago was an appeal to help developing countries fund activities for environmental protection and sustainable development. Unfortunately, the response has been slow.

            ‘Mobilising financial resources for sustainable forest management has been one of the most critical and politically sensitive issues that emerged from the June 1992 Earth Summit’, says Mafa Chipeta, CIFOR’s Deputy Director General. ‘Financing SFM will undoubtedly be a priority issue in the international forest community for a long time’.

            In 2000, CIFOR coordinated the planning of the third in a series of government-led international workshops on the issue. Chipeta headed the Steering Committee, assisted by Mahendra Joshi from the Secretariat of the U.N. International Forum on Forests. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, the U.N. Development Programme and the World Bank contributed to the planning. Seventy people from 40 countries attended the workshop, which was held in January 2001 in Oslo, Norway. The results of the meeting will be highly useful to international bodies deliberating sustainable forest management, such as the recently established United Nations Forum onForests.         

            The conferees concluded that lack of adequate funding is generally not the main constraint to investment in sustainable forest management in developing countries. Instead, a lack of enabling conditions is one of the biggest obstacles. To ‘sell’ sustainable forestry to public and private investors, they agreed, the potential for economic gain must be emphasised along with ecological and social benefits. Among the initiatives they suggested would help improve the present situation are:

•  Linking investment in sustainable forest management in developing countries more closely with poverty and other pressing concerns

•  Promoting fairer trade and prices, to remove any unfair burdens assumed by responsible suppliers of products from sustainably managed forests

•  Reducing levels of actual and perceived risk to private investors

•  Decreasing disincentives that raise operational costs and reduce returns, such as overregulation, poor infrastructure and undeveloped markets

           CIFOR is using its Web site as a centralised source of information about issues discussed at the workshop, which was funded by the governments of Norway and the United Kingdom with additional support from Brazil, Denmark, Malaysia and South Africa. Chipeta says the broad geographical range of that support reflects the widespread interest in the subject. ‘The world community wants to see effective partnerships in this area’, he observes. ‘The developments in Oslo will take us astep closer to workable mechanisms for achieving that’.

Streamlining Access to Global Forest Information

Currently, there is no easy way to sort through the voluminous amount of existing forest-related data to find the information best suited to a particular need. To address this problem, CIFOR has teamed up with the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO), the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and others to develop a uniform system for accessing and sharing forest information worldwide. Called the Global Forest Information Service, it will provide a gateway through the World Wide Web to a vast storehouse of information from many national and international forestry organisations.

            The wide range of forest-related data compiled and catalogued by various institutions is commonly available in digital format, but there is little standardisation in the framework and descriptions by which the data are stored. The new service will overcome that inconsistency by introducing ‘metadata’ standards for describing available resources. (Metadata are data about data.) With little modification or by using conversion tables, even institutions with existing metadata catalogues will be able to make those catalogues compatible with the system’s framework. This standardisation along with connectivity to the Web will enable users to access the different data sources through a unified search interface.

            Michael Hailu, CIFOR’s Director of Information Services, is deputy coordinator of a task force that is developing the system in consultation with experts from a number of forestry organisations. Most of the technical work is being conducted at IUFRO’s Secretariat in Vienna and at FAO in Rome.

            One of the key aims of the new resource is capacity building, especially helping national forest research institutions in developing countries to organise their information and make it more easily available. Even though the service is still under development, IUFRO recently launched a project to train forest information specialists in Africa in metadata and Internet resource skills. Computer facilities have been set up at five regional sites to support training and serve as hubs for the new Global Forest Information Service, which is being developed with support from the European Commission.

POLEX: Fast and Effective Policy Alerts

Big impact does not always require a big investment. Twice a month, CIFOR’s electronic mailing list known as POLEX (for Forest Policy Expert list serve) notifies researchers, policy makers, forest managers and others around the world about important forest-related findings and reports. In less than four years, the subscriber list has swelled to more than 3,000—and keeps growing. An Indonesian POLEX is also available, and early in 2001 CIFOR introduced a Spanish-language version.

            Each POLEX message describes recent work by CIFOR, its partners or other institutions, with information on how to contact the authors and obtain the full reports. Staff scientist David Kaimowitz writes the snappy summaries in a style that often questions the conventional wisdom and makes readers take notice. He covers a broad range of forest topics and geographical regions, but gives particular attention to analyses and research results from developing countries.

            How effective is POLEX? In October, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation announced the availability of its Global Forest Products Outlook Study Working Paper 3 by posting information on four forest-related list serves. The FAO got 255 requests for copies. That number doubled after the report was described in a November POLEX message that drew an additional 256 requests. Similarly, after a POLEX item summarised a paper on conservation financing prepared by the Inter-American Development Bank, the Bank’s senior forester, Kari Keipi, received 600 requests for copies. In a recent 10-week period, more than two dozen POLEX recipients in 16 countries sent unsolicited comments saying they found the service highly useful and the material it describes relevant to their work.

Who Receives POLEX?

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