Indigenous forests in Africa are being cut down at an ‘alarming’ rate of about 3.4 million hectares per year, making the continent the region with the second highest net annual loss of forests in 2000-2010, United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.

John Peacock, manager of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) - Leventis Foundation Project said reforestation and education on the benefits of conservation would help stop and reclaim Africa’s lost forest and biodiversity, if necessary authorities could respond to its safety.

Mr. Peacock who spoke during the 2010 Open Day held last week added that conservation of Africa’s forest offers great benefits preserving Africa’s surviving tropical forests and that planting new trees to replace those lost to deforestation could help reduce the severity of climate change.

The 2010 Open Day was marked with the planting of indigenous trees by IITA staff in Ibadan to help mitigate the effects of climate change and losses in biodiversity.

Nigeria’s loss

According to the group, the tree planting came at a time when deforestation rate in Nigeria has reached a disturbing rate of 3.5% per year, translating to a loss of350,000-400,000 hectares of forest per year.

In 1976,Nigeria had 23 million hectares of forest but today only 9.6 million hectares remain, less than 10% of Nigeria’s total land area.Mr. Peacock added that planting trees is part of a new initiative to restore rainforests in Nigeria. IITA is also contributing to the important UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative in Nigeria.

Through the IITA-Leventis Project, the team, particularly Olukunle Olasupo and Deni Bown, have raised over 15,000 seedlings of 33 different species since February 2010 in preparation for planting next year.“We would like every family, represented by staff members in IITA, to plant an indigenous tree next year as part of IITA’s activities to increase the forest area,” Mr. Peacock said.

Earlier this year, IITA and partners made effort to raise awareness of the need to preserve biodiversity-a term that describes the variety of living organisms-especially in forests that are increasingly lost or threatened.

Statistics indicate that Nigeria’s Milicia excelsa (iroko) has become endangered, with about $100 million worth of Iroko timber illegally poached from remaining forests last year.

“The unfortunate thing is that these very valuable trees are not being replaced,” he said. (By Emmanuel Ogala)

Source: next

SEOUL — The world's 20 largest rich and emerging economies including China vowed Friday to "spare no effort" at upcoming climate change talks in Mexico, a year after Beijing stymied a deal in Copenhagen.

"We will spare no effort to reach a balanced and successful outcome in Cancun," the Group of 20 said in a statement issued at the end of two days of talks in Seoul.

The vow came less than three weeks before 194 countries meet in the Mexican resort city of Cancun for a second go at hammering out an agreement to curb greenhouse gases after 2012, when the current arrangement expires.

The climate gathering will take place in the lingering shadow of last December's Copenhagen summit, which ended in near-fiasco, due in no large part, critics say, to Chinese reluctance to agree to binding commitments.

"Addressing the threat of global climate change is an urgent priority for all nations," the G20 statement said.

"We reiterate our commitment to take strong and action-oriented measures and remain fully dedicated to UN climate change negotiations."

Despite the promise in Friday's statement, China has routinely voiced reluctance to take the lead in curbing greenhouse gases, saying it is not to blame for the situation the world is in now.

"Developed countries have their historic responsibility over climate change," Sun Zhen, a top China climate change official said earlier this month in Hong Kong. "There is no reason not to deal with this primary concern."

China and the United States clashed at a UN climate gathering last month in the Chinese city of Tianjin, accusing each other of blocking progress ahead of the Cancun summit.

The United States wants China, the world's largest source of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, to commit to curbing carbon emissions and developing countries to agree to more scrutiny of their climate claims.

China has rejected pressure for outside verification, saying it was a US attempt to divert attention from the fact the United States has so far failed to get emissions-cut legislation through Congress.

This law now appears even less likely to get the green light following massive wins in this month's mid-term elections for Republicans, who are generally less welcoming of environmental constraints on business.

As the prospect of a path-breaking deal in Cancun has dimmed, efforts have moved towards more modest and incremental steps.

This has resulted in a focus on smaller goals -- deals on deforestation, progress on financing and technology transfer -- which were echoed in the G20 statement.

"We all are committed to achieving a successful, balanced result that includes the core issues of mitigation, transparency, finance, technology, adaptation, and forest preservation," the statement said.

The G20 members pledged to back sustainable development, enabling countries to "leapfrog old technologies in many sectors".

"We are committed to support country-led green growth policies that promote environmentally sustainable global growth along with employment creation while ensuring energy access for the poor," it said. (By Peter Harmsen)

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Source: AFP/Google

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Although it was cut short by unfortunate circumstances relating to volcanic eruptions in Yogyakarta, President Barack Obama’s visit to Indonesia left an important message about the future of Indonesia’s sustainable development.

During his less than 24-hour stay in Indonesia, President Obama managed to get two of his main talking points across. The first one was about the relationship between the US and the Muslim world and the second about the economic partnership between Indonesia and the US.

The first point is purely aesthetic but ineffectual in nature. Although Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, it is located far from the epicenter of the issue in Palestine and has absolutely no political influence on any Middle East peace talks.

Even the most radical Muslims living in Kandahar, Gaza, or Islamabad could care less if the West suddenly decided to send a missile to Indonesia while the radical part of Indonesian Muslims sadly would jump into a war if something were to happen to the Dome of Rock.

Obama’s second point of calling for increased trade between Indonesia and the US is more relevant considering the struggle between China and the US to gain more influence over Indonesia’s developing economy as reported by Noritmitsu Onishi in The New York Times on Nov. 10.

Since the failed communist coup of 1965, coupled with the local antagonistic tendencies against the Chinese minority, Indonesia has managed to keep trade with China to a minimum. However as China continues to grow economically, increased Chinese influence over Indonesia is inevitable. Apparently less than a day before Obama’s visit, Beijing had agreed to pour US$6.6 billion in investment into Indonesia’s infrastructure development.

Having the second-largest rain forest resources in the world, the development of land use in Indonesia will be important in the global effort against climate change. This is why scientists all over the world “facepalmed” when they saw Indonesia’s asinine and ironic efforts to make more bio-fuel out of palm oil plantations by cutting down more rain forest.

The policy releases more net greenhouse gasses from deforestation and carbon release from organic rich peat lands than it saves through emissions reductions, and in the process has disastrously catapulted Indonesia to third largest CO2 emitter behind China and the US.

The US energy cap-and-trade bill might never be able to pass the US House let alone the Senate, but the Obama administration could still retain some integrity in the next IPCC climate convention if they make up for their lack of domestic progress by helping Indonesia and other developing countries carry out more sustainable economic developments.

Then all international pressure during the convention can be diverted to China, forcing them to do something about their carbon emissions. This policy would also considerably help the US fight China’s growing dominance on global economy because it would limit China’s influence over the strategically resource-rich region of Southeast Asia.

Sadly, neither Obama nor Yudhoyono emphasized these climate change and energy policy issues during their press conferences. This is understandable though as natural selection has never favored hindsight and people usually prefer a short-term rather than long-term solution.

Moreover, considering the heavily polarized state of American politics coupled with the growing anger and frustration channeled by the Republican Party for its own gain, domestic progress in the right direction is unlikely to happen.

Therefore the jury is out on Indonesia. The Southeast Asian country must take the initiative and come up with its own proposals for the United States. Because of the emerging global economy, no country can afford to wall off their trade and become a truly “independent” country.

There is no such thing as “resisting colonization from the West,” and as for Indonesia the choice is either to work with the Western world toward a more sustainable environment and higher quality albeit more expensive infrastructure or work with emerging China for cheaper but less sustainable and lower quality development. (By Michael N. Dyonisius)

The writer is an Indonesian student at Boston University majoring in environmental science.

Source: The Jakarta Post

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YOKOHAMA, Japan — Mexican President Felipe Calderon said that upcoming climate change talks in Mexico will produce "unprecedented results" but not a hoped-for legally binding treaty.

Later this month 194 countries will meet in the Mexican resort city of Cancun for a second attempt at hammering out an agreement to curb greenhouse gases after 2012, when the current arrangement expires.

The climate gathering takes place in the shadow of last December's Copenhagen summit, which ended in failure after China was accused of blocking a deal on binding commitments.

"There are reasons that allow us to be moderately optimistic about what is going to happen there (in Cancun)," Calderon said on Saturday in a speech to a business conference ahead of a Pacific Rim summit in Japan.

"It is not possible to expect the founding treaty of the future (with) the legally binding commitments that we all want," he said on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) talks.

"The good news is that Cancun will certainly make unprecedented results in my opinion."

"We may not score a touchdown in Cancun but we will certainly make a significant first down with a very important advance in the negotiations," he said, using an American football analogy.

In Seoul on Friday, the world's 20 largest rich and emerging economies including China vowed to "spare no effort" at the Cancun talks, which run from November 29 to December 10.

However, China has routinely voiced reluctance to take the lead in curbing greenhouse gases, saying it is not to blame for the situation the world is in.

China and the United States clashed at a UN climate gathering last month in the Chinese city of Tianjin, accusing each other of blocking progress ahead of Cancun.

The United States wants China, the world's largest source of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, to commit to curbing carbon emissions and developing countries to agree to more scrutiny of their climate claims.

China has rejected pressure for outside verification, saying it is a US attempt to divert attention from the fact the United States has so far failed to get emissions-cut legislation through Congress.

As the prospect of a path-breaking deal in Cancun has dimmed, efforts have moved towards more modest and incremental steps.

Nobuo Tanaka, head of the International Energy Agency, issued a wish list to the conference of steps he said could become "concrete achievements" in Cancun.

"The G20 leaders agreed in Seoul to phase out fossil fuel consumption subsidies. This is important to really reduce the oil demand by about 5.0 million barrels per day," he said.

"You can save five percent of the energy demand in the future, you can save 2.0 gigatons of CO2 emissions."

Tanaka, from the Paris-based energy monitoring and strategy arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, also called for a "strong push" from leaders to develop energy-saving technology.

The new focus on smaller goals -- deals on deforestation, progress on financing and technology transfer -- were echoed in the G20 statement.

"We all are committed to achieving a successful, balanced result that includes the core issues of mitigation, transparency, finance, technology, adaptation, and forest preservation," the statement said. (By Marianne Barriaux)

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Source: AFP/Google

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