The international community will gather next week in Cancun to negotiate an agreement to curb man-made climate change. While there are fears that goal will not be met, some countries already are implementing part of the plan - by reducing emissions due to deforestation and degradation. Heavily forested countries such as Indonesia hope to see more progress on the effort in Cancun.

Indonesia boasts almost 1 million square kilometers of forests, the second-largest in the world after Brazil's. The World Bank estimates that if the world put a monetary value on the carbon stored in trees, Indonesia could earn up to $2 billion a year by selling carbon credits.

Jakarta is getting ready for the plan, known as REDD for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation. There are several pilot projects throughout the archipelago, and earlier this year the Russian company Gazprom bought the first carbon credits from a REDD project.

Agus Purnomo is the head of the Indonesian Climate Change Council:

"This shows that despite all the challenges that we are trying to overcome on good governance issues, on availability of resources, on expertise and whatnot, there are real opportunities of making things happen," said Purnomo.

Most climate experts say that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, released by burning oil and coal, contribute to warming temperatures. To reduce the warming, countries are negotiating a binding plan to cut emissions.

For some nations, that will mean reducing the use of fossil fuels. But in heavily forested countries, such as Indonesia, it could mean protecting forests, which absorb carbon dioxide.

But the REDD plan has problems that need smoothing out, mostly due to poor governance in developing countries. For example, there is the question of how to guarantee that the carbon credits sold will not be wiped out by illegal logging. Environmental group Greenpeace warns that corruption also could reduce the benefits.

Nonetheless, Norway has committed $1 billion for Indonesia to protect its forests. Purnomo says this show of confidence has helped the country to start reforming its forest management.

"It's just like when you want to make a turn on a tanker ship: it will take several days to do a real turn," said Purnomo. "For us, it will mean several months to make a change. But the seriousness, the efforts, the consultations, the designs that have been put in place in the last two months is amazing. It's unprecedented"

In January, Indonesia begins a two year moratorium on new permits to clear natural forest.

Agus Sari, who heads Indonesian operations for the U.S. company Sustainable Conservation, says the progress made is not yet enough for a large carbon market to take off.

"We are probably 25 percent toward what we should have had in terms of good governance, but you know, it's 25 percent more than it used to [be]," said Sari. "But I think time-wise it is not too bad because if REDD was ready now, I don't think Indonesia would be ready"

Many taking part in climate negotiations see REDD as one of the least controversial points and they expect to make headway on implementing the program during the Cancun summit. But it might still be a few years before carbon credits from forests are sold widely. (By Solenn Honorine)

Source: VOANews

A focus on conservation of high carbon landscapes via the proposed REDD mechanism could come at a detriment to biodiversity, argues a new paper published in Carbon Balance and Management.

The research, led by Gary Paoli of Daemeter Consulting in Indonesia, analyzed other studies on biodiversity, vegetation types, and carbon emissions. It found that carbon-dense peat swamps, likely a focal point for REDD programs in Indonesia, "do not coincide with areas supporting the highest concentrations of threatened biodiversity," according to a statement from the University of Kent.

"The highest carbon savings are not necessarily located in places with the highest levels of species diversity," said Paoli, in a statement.

Lowland forests, among the most threatened and biodiverse ecosystems in Indonesia, hold only a fraction of the carbon found in peat forests, which store large amounts of carbon in their soils.

"Peat swamp forests attract the bulk of REDD funds - they hold around 8 times more carbon than other lowland forests, and provide habitat for high profile species such as orang-utan, tigers and Asian elephants," said Matthew Struebig of the University of Kent. "However, when we look at overall numbers of plants, mammals and birds, especially species of greatest conservation concern, we find that peat forests typically support lower densities and fewer species than other lowland forest types."

To avoid REDD diverting conservation funds away from endangered species and landscapes, the authors recommend governments set specific ecosystem and biodiversity conservation targets for all native ecosystem types. The authors suggest REDD could provide co-financing to "redefine acceptable land-use practices within priority areas needed to fill biodiversity conservation gaps."

"If such a national planning process were made a pre-requisite for multi-lateral and bi-lateral REDD funding, and REDD payments linked not only to verified emission reductions but also biodiversity co-benefits, then net positive impacts on biodiversity would be ensured, and the negative potential impacts we describe would be reduced," the authors conclude.

Copyright mongabay 2010

Source: Mongabay

Some rights for the image is reserved under Creative Commons license

The Harapan Rainforest Initiative gets a major boost courtesy of a US$3 million donation by Singapore Airlines. ARTI MULCHAND follows the progress of this landmark conservation programme in the tropical wilds of Sumatra.

A researcher by one of the lakes in Harapan Rainforest.

Deep in the Harapan Rainforest (which means ‘hope’ in Bahasa Indonesia), in a 100,000-hectare tract straddling Indonesia’s Jambi and South Sumatra provinces, 40-year-old Rusman Bin Zen stands sentry, watching over this threatened habitat. Pak Rusman is one of 800 members of the forest’s remaining indigenous people, the Bathin Sembilan. For generations, the Bathin Sembilan’s family groups, or guguk, have lived in the rainforest, fishing in its rivers, harvesting rattan, resin and honey, both for their own survival and some small-scale trade.

Until recently, however, both the Bathin Sembilan and their rainforest habitat have been losing a two-decade-long battle against more commercial – and often illegal – interests. Already, the hamlet of Penyerukan which Pak Rusman calls home in Tanjung Lebar, on the rainforest border, has been occupied by an oil palm plantation. The encroachments not only rob the Bathin Sembilan of their homes and livelihoods, they also deprive the planet of its crucial “lungs”. It is a well-known fact that the earth’s rainforests are among its chief carbon stores, and deforestation alone accounts for 17 per cent of carbon emissions.

Overlogging and conversion to agriculture have also threatened the Harapan Rainforest’s rich wildlife, which includes more than 290 bird species, including the rhinoceros hornbill and rufous-collared kingfisher, and 56 mammal species, such as the critically-endangered Sumatran Tiger, Malayan Tapir and Clouded Leopard. Indonesia’s islands may cover just one per cent of the world’s land area, but the biodiversity in its lowland forests rivals that of the Brazilian Amazon.

RECLAIMING THE RAINFOREST

Now, Pak Rusman and the rainforest are taking a stand, and they’re backed by the Harapan Rainforest Initiative, a massive rainforest ecosystem restoration project spearheaded by a BirdLife International consortium including Burung Indonesia and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

As one of the world’s first rainforest protection and restoration concessions of its type, Harapan covers an area of almost 100,000 hectares, or about one-and-a-half-times the size of Singapore. Harapan represents a fifth of the mere 500,000 hectares of lowland forests that are left standing in Sumatra, where the forests are regarded as the most threatened. Right now, plant species native to the site are being replanted, and Pak Rusman along with 100 other members of Bathin Sembilan and other local communities have been deployed and trained as round-the-clock forest patrols to keep a watchful eye on the flora and fauna.

Among the exotic bird species that call the Harapan Rainforest home is the Wreathed Hornbill.		Another native of the forest, a long-tailed macaque, nibbles on fruits.

TAKING HOPE TO NEW HEIGHTS

With the foundation laid, Harapan recently received a tremendous boost in the form of a US$3 million donation from Singapore Airlines in August this year.

The contribution allows for the creation of the Harapan endowment fund, which is crucial to the continuity of the project – providing legs to an initiative that, in its first three years, has already begun to make a difference. Drawing on the field skills of Pak Rusman and his tribe, already the number of forest fires, as well as incidences of illegal logging and poaching, have decreased. In its early years, the fund will pay for forest restoration and the creation of sustainable livelihood projects for local communities. It will also put in place support systems for healthcare for the area’s local communities, along with education and research into wildlife conservation and reforestation, says Yusup Cahyadin, head of the Harapan Rainforest Management.

Local forest ranger trainees collecting plant samples for research.		Staff at the tree nursery tending to saplings that will be replanted in the forest.

This is Singapore Airlines’ first long-term investment in a global green project, though it is not the first time the airline has been courted for “green” funding. So why this, why now? There was something about the Harapan project that stood out when the consortium first approached the Airline in 2007, says Bey Soo Khiang, Singapore Airlines’ Senior Executive Vice-President Marketing and Corporate Services. It was a chance for the Airline to make a real and direct difference. “Being close to Sumatra means that we could go down to the ground, participate, and track progress. That was very different from just making a donation to middlemen for projects that are far away. Quite often they are just asking for money and they take it from there, so you’re unsure of how your money would be used, and if there will be tangible results,” recalls Mr Bey.

Mr Bey and three colleagues from the Airline also made a trip to the site in late 2008, where they witnessed first-hand what the project had accomplished and what more could be achieved. What greeted them was a mix of members from the Bathin Sembilan and other local groups, as well as experts from BirdLife International, who acquainted them with the work being done on the ground. This essentially involved rehabilitating tracts of forest that had been previously destroyed, while introducing measures to preserve the relatively intact parts of the forest.

Singapore Airlines also recognised that involvement in the Harapan project could have a major impact closer to home. Almost annually, slash and burn activities in neighbouring countries have clouded the region in a smoke haze.

“If we can prevent those forest fires, it means that the impact of the haze would go down,” says Mr Bey, adding that a real difference can only be made by getting to the root of the problem. Mr Bey emphasised that the Airline’s commitment to Harapan is for the long haul, and that it hopes to eventually get its staff and customers involved in the project through initiatives that could range from ecotourism to regular updates.

HOPE AND BEYOND

The hope is that Harapan will serve as the model for forest restoration and wildlife conservation, sustainable local development and combating climate change around the world. Currently, Harapan forms the prototype of BirdLife’s Forests of Hope programme, which aims to create successful forest conservation and management programmes elsewhere, such as in the Philippines, Ecuador and Fiji.

Says Dr Roger Safford, senior programme manager at Birdlife International: “We have come to realise that on a global level we’re not doing enough because deforestation is going on and forest cover is decreasing. We have got to find ways to scale up what we are doing. We need to collaborate, share experiences, and start to think in terms of millions of hectares rather than thousands.”

With tropical forests storing twice as much carbon as temperate forests, their conservation is central to the world’s efforts to combat climate change. They are the most ecologically rich of all forest types and house 70 per cent of the world’s plants and animals – more than 13 million species – and contain 30 per cent of all bird species, and 90 per cent of invertebrates. Certainly, there has never been a more urgent time to arrest the damage being inflicted on these precious resources. And Harapan signifies the first crucial step in that direction.

Visit harapanrainforest.org or www.birdlife.org/forests to learn more about the project.

COURTESY CLARE KENDALL, RSPB-IMAGES.COM / DAVID LEE / KIM SORENSEN / SRI MADIYANINGRINI

Source: SILVERKRIS

A widely used representation of greenhouse gas emissions abatement costs doesn't reflect the true costs of forest conservation, making the proposed reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) mechanism seem cheaper than it actually is, argues a new report from the Rainforest Foundation UK.

Developed by McKinsey & Company, a consultancy, the carbon mitigation cost-curve shows the size of various opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions for different activities in order of cost. Potential emissions savings (abatement) are on the x-axis and the cost (per metric ton of carbon dioxide) is listed on the y-axis. The model has been applied by several countries developing REDD strategies, including Indonesia, Guyana, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Papua New Guinea.

But in a new briefing, McREDD: How McKinsey 'cost-curves' are distorting REDD [PDF], the London-based Rainforest Foundation UK says the cost-curve is underestimating the true cost of REDD, potentially "distorting" national REDD plans. The Rainforest Foundation UK argues that McKinsey cost-curve fails to account for transaction and implementation costs; neglects the challenges of governance; and "undervalues activities not integrated into formal markets, such as subsistence farming".

"The approach is flawed as a policy-making tool as it does not consider alternative policy options, and favors policy that would allow industrial uses of the forest to continue business-as-usual, whilst penalizing subsistence activities," states the briefing, which is authored by Nathaniel Dyer and Simon Counsell.

The authors note that forest communities are disadvantaged under the approach because it suggests their activities should be compensated at a much lower level than industrial interests—including loggers, plantation owners, ranchers, and large farmers—which generate higher output per unit of land. Dyer and Counsell argue that compensation postulated for smallholders under McKinsey cost-curve may be insufficient to actually reduce deforestation because it doesn't account for the full opportunity cost of foregoing subsidence activities. Instead, by arguing for substantially higher levels of compensation for industrial forest developers, the curve seems to favor loggers and plantation developers continuing on a business-as-usual path.

McKinsey & Company. (2009.) “Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy: Version 2 of Global Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve.”, p. 7.

Indonesia’s National Climate Change Council (DNPI). (2010.) “Indonesia’s greenhouse gas abatement cost curve”. August 2010, p. 21.

"McKinsey's flawed analysis could be dangerous in the fight against climate change, as it makes it appear much cheaper and easier to tackle tropical deforestation than it would be in reality and it might lead us to postpone the real actions that need to be taken at home to prevent climate change. Priorities for reducing carbon emissions need to be based on the real costs of the different options, rather than on junk economic theory", said Counsell, Executive Director of Rainforest Foundation UK, in a statement.

Counsell said the McKinsey cost-curve—in its current form—should be scrapped as a tool for designing national REDD plans. The Rainforest Foundation UK would instead like to see a more participatory process for evaluating the costs and opportunities of REDD.

For its part, McKinsey says it is "continuously researching the topic of abatement or mitigation" and accordingly, has updated its abatement curve twice since it launched in January 2007.

Copyright mongabay 2010

Source: Mongabay