Hopefully it comes as no great surprise to you that deforestation is a major problem in many areas of the world, both it terms of preserving biodiversity and preventing climate change -- some countries are chopping down their forests at astonishing rates. But what you may not know is which nations really have the highest rates of deforestation, so here they are:

When considering all these, for sake of comparison, even though Brazil gets a lot of the heat for Amazonian deforestation -- and rightly so, considering the total area of land cleared -- as a percentage of landmass cleared it isn't even in the the top twenty. Over the past twenty years or so the deforestation rate has been 8% and over 70% of historic forest cover remains.

NOTE: All the data in this post has been derived from the truly informative and well presented Google Earth layer on deforestation, created by David Tryse, which draws its data from the World Resources Institute and Greenpeace. All percentages refer to the years 1990-2005.

1) Honduras: -37%
Historically Honduras was pretty much entirely covered by trees, with half a percent of the land not forested. Today about half of that remains (52%), with just about 16% existing in a frontier forest state. Between 1990-2005, Honduras saw a decline of 37% in its forest cover.

2) Nigeria: -36%
About half the land in Nigeria used to be covered in trees. Today all but about 10% of those have been chopped down, and less than one percent exist as frontier forest. Nigeria has removed 36% of its trees in the past two decades.

3) The Philippines: -32%
The islands that make up the Philippines used to be all forested. Today only 35% of those forests remain; the only (slightly) good news in that is about 28% remain as frontier forest. But with a deforestation rate over the past twenty or so years of 26%, the future isn't so bright.

4) Benin: -31%
Benin didn't start out with great amounts of forest cover -- only about 16% of the land used to be forested -- and a high deforestation rate of 31% doesn't help preserve what remains. Less than 4% of those original forests remain, and none in a frontier forest state.

5) Ghana: -28%
At one point about two-thirds of Ghana was covered with forest; now, less than 10% of that forest cover remains and none as frontier forest. At a rate of decline since 1990 of 28%, that remaining forest doesn't stand a chance without better forestry practices.

6) Indonesia: -26%
Indonesia is a strange case. Like much of Southeast Asia it was historically entirely covered in forest, and over the whole nation some 65% of that forest cover remains, with about 29% in a frontier forest condition. But it's seen a serious decline in that forest cover over the past two decades which doesn't show signs of letting up.

It's also an amazingly large country, and there are local conditions that get minimized in the stats. For example, on Borneo (the world's third largest island) between 1985-2000 more logs were felled than in all of South America and Africa combined. Half of the lowland forest is currently gone and that could increase to two-thirds in just ten years.

7) Nepal & North Korea: -25%
Nepal has about 22% of its original forest cover remaining, non of which is considered frontier forest -- the past two decades saw a 25% decline in forest cover.

At one point nearly all of North Korea was forested, but today about 61% of that has been cleared -- the change in forest cover since 1990 has been a decline of about 25%.

9) Ecuador & Haiti: -22%
Rounding out the bottom of the top, as it were, are Ecuador, Liberia, and Haiti, all of which have witnessed 22% declines in forest cover since 1990.

Ecuador was originally largely forested, but today has about two-thirds of that forest cover remaining. The comparatively good news is that about 37% of that is frontier forest.

The bad news about Haiti is that it has had a 22% decline in forest cover in the past twenty years. The even worse news is that Haiti has already cleared all but a fraction of a percent of it's original forest, 99.2% to be exact. Here's the symbol par excellence of what happens when you have horrendous forestry practice. (by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY)

Source: treehugger.com

Tags: deforestation , forest

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paper products giant Kimberly-Clark Corp joined forces with Greenpeace on Wednesday, pledging to conserve forests by getting wood fiber from environmentally responsible sources.

In an announcement with the environmental group, which waged a nearly 5-year campaign against the company for clear-cutting in Canada's boreal forest, Kimberly-Clark said it would stop buying wood fiber from the vast woodland which stretches across the country unless it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

"We are a 100-plus-year-old company. We want to be around here for another 100-plus years or more, and the only way we can be is by using sustainable forest practices," Kimberly-Clark's Suhas Apte, vice president of global sustainability, said in a telephone interview.

Kimberly-Clark is among the world's largest paper-products manufacturers, including such brands as Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle.

The company pledged to get all its wood fiber for tissue products from environmentally responsible sources, increasing the use of recycled fiber and certified fiber.

By the end of 2011, the company said 40 percent of its North American tissue fiber -- about 600,000 tonnes -- will be either recycled or certified, an increase of more than 70 percent over 2007 levels.

Forest conservation is considered a key weapon against climate change, because forests lock up over 20 percent of all human-generated carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that spurs global warming when it gets into the atmosphere.

CONSERVING CANADIAN FOREST

The trees and soil of Canada's boreal forest store some 186 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to 27 years of global greenhouse gas emissions, said Richard Brooks of Greenpeace Canada.

"Canada's boreal forest is the largest ancient forest left in North America," Brooks said in a statement. "Though vast, already 60 percent is allocated to logging companies for development. Less than 10 percent of the forest is permanently protected."

Kimberly-Clark's new standards could bring some of the unspoiled areas of the forest closer to permanent conservation, Brooks said.

"There's a cultural difference between a group like Greenpeace and a group like Kimberly-Clark," said Scott Paul, director of Greenpeace USA's Forest Campaign. "But we were able to find ... a path forward that truly pushed Kimberly-Clark down a road of greater and greater sustainability but allowed them to pursue a business model that allowed the quality products people expect."

Greenpeace's "Kleercut" campaign against Kimberly-Clark began in November 2004 and featured such eye-catching actions as setting up a "forest crime scene" outside the company's Canadian headquarters and a print ad in The New York Times that told readers they were destroying the boreal forest every time they used Kleenex tissue.

The environmental group ended the campaign on Wednesday with a video posted at www.greenpeace.org/kleercut

The change comes four months after Kimberly-Clark introduced a line of paper products using recycled material. (By Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.

Source: UK Reuters

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Tags: forest , Greepeace , Kimberly-Clark

Despite intense campaigns, Indonesia has been slow on the uptake of the clean development mechanism (CDM) program, with the UN only approving 23 projects so far, a far cry from China's 422, India's 395 and Malaysia's 41.

One of the main reasons so few projects have been implemented in Indonesia is their small profit margin hovering around 10 to 15 percent, said Agus Purnomo, the secretary-general of Indonesia's National Council on Climate Change (DNPI), the government-authorized body in charge of tackling the effects of climate change, particularly through the implementation of CDM projects in Indonesia.

"The business community tends to back businesses that promise margins of between 50 and 80 percent. So, most businessmen consider a profit of up to 15 percent too small an amount," said Agus in an interview on Tuesday.

In addition to the small margins, CDM projects are still relatively unfamiliar to most businessmen.

Agus said the carbon market - where each ton of non-emitted carbon, which is also equivalent to a certified reduction emission (CER), is traded as a commodity - is relatively new and different from other commodity markets.

"Since it is new and different, many financial institutions find it difficult to make predictions."

Agus, who is also an environment expert working with State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar, added that more campaigns were needed to deepen people's understanding about the importance of environmentally sustainable business practices, and about the need to factor in the longer term when seeking profits.

Perhaps, he said, as most of Indonesian businessmen were only short-term investors, they were not interested in looking at the long-term benefits of projects.

Despite the small amount of benefits in the short term, projects under the CDM program will reap larger benefits over the long term.

"Let's take the example of a CDM project involving a geothermal power plant. As a result of being geothermal, the plant can save up to 400,000 tons of carbon emissions per year, therefore trade 400,000 CERs on the carbon market. With a CER worth, let's say, 10 euros per ton, the plant can make 4 million euros per year trading its non-emitted carbon.

"In 20 years, it can make a total of 80 million euros. That's already far above the total amount invested *for implementing the scheme*."

He added that businessmen were also discouraged by the many requirements and methodologies available.

"Making a decision when given so many choices requires a certain level of expertise. If they don't have such expertise, they tend not to take on the project," he said

Between 2008-2012, Indonesia has the potential to trade about 125 million tons of non-emitted carbon or 25 million tons per year from the energy sector, and up to 23 million tons per year from the forestry sector. (Benget Besalicto Tnb.)

Source: The Jakarta Post

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Tags: CDM , CER , Indonesia

Deforestation is fast becoming a central part of any Post-Kyoto agreement on global greenhouse gases. It’s easy to see why. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the sector produces 17% of emissions worldwide. That makes it the third largest source of greenhouse gases — even bigger than the transport industry, including airlines and shipping.

To offset emissions caused by deforestation, policy-makers plan to pay countries to maintain forests, instead of cutting them down. The scheme already has a (clunky) title: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD. It would allow companies/communities, in predominantly emerging countries where the majority of forests are located, to bank carbon credits from protecting trees. These emissions credits could then be sold in the global carbon markets for a profit. In theory, polluters would buy them to offset their own CO2 output. The UN-backed project already has pilots underway, with analysts predicting the market for forestry credits could top $50 billion by the next decade.

Some aren’t hanging around for REDD to be approved.

According to the Latin American Herald, Peru will pay indigenous communities just over $3 per hectare of rainforest they help to preserve. That's an almost 100% increase from previous incentives, but still low by international standards. Under current projections for REDD, forests could be worth $800 per hectare for their carbon, depending on the level and speed of deforestation. The Peruvian scheme could lead communities to pocket $37 million for protecting local forests. The country's environment minister says the plan would be grandfathered into any Post-Kyoto agreement.

The benefits of tackling deforestation could be profound. But many obstacles could still scupper the proposals. A lack of monitoring in developing countries could make it hard to prove trees aren't being cut down. Companies may also pocket the money from carbon credits, but fail to make the plans sustainable. That's what happened when forestry projects were used in the voluntary carbon markets (See page 10 of PDF). Experts fear local communities may fail to benefit from the influx of capital. And carbon market participants, such as investment banks and utilities, may shy away from risky forestry credits, preferring green energy investments elsewhere to offset emissions.

These questions will be central when global policy-makers meet in Copenhagen in December to hammer out a Post-Kyoto agreement. Negotiations are expected to be difficult. But with the likes of Peru already establishing deforestation in its overall carbon plan, analysts expect some form of REDD to be included -- despite ongoing concerns. (By Mark Scott)

Source: BusinessWeek

Some rights for the image is reserved under Creative Commons license

Tags: carbon market , REDD