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An alarm, however, is raised by Harvard forest ecologist that logger could gaming the definition. People could just keep logging until they reach the threshold aiming the higher cubic of wood and disregarding biodiversity. The study even shows that the forest definition could lost almost 40% of carbon but still considered as forest (and possibly receive incentives under forest carbon offset). Some quote: Sasaki says that the minimum threshold for canopy cover should be raised to 40%, the minimum tree height should be 5 metres and that natural forests should be differentiated from plantations. His proposed threshold for canopy cover, he says, is based not on calculations that show forest degradation would be avoided at these levels, but rather on the definition used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, as this is likely to be acceptable to participating countries and "40% has to be better than 30%". Sasaki is also concerned that forest degradation will be "disregarded" in the post-Kyoto agreement on climate change due to be negotiated in Copenhagen in December. But Sasaki says that several prominent studies ignore the issue of degradation of forests and their long-term sustainability — including a report from the Harvard University project on international climate agreements which was presented to the UNFCCC in Poznań, Poland, in December last year. Full article here. Comments (0)
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 September 2009 19:42 ) |
Long time ago in Marakesh, 
