**4. Deforestation and climate change**

30 Sustainable Forest Management – Case Studies

arises as to why reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation was excluded. Alvarado & Wertz-Kanounnikoff (2008) argue that it is not unrelated to the techno-scientific, political and methodological complexities. We will examine these obstacles later in the

Nevertheless, at The Hague meeting in 2000, the issue of avoided deforestation was brought up during deliberations on the eligibility of land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities under the CDM. This issue was raised when Annex I Parties reported emissions from deforestation in annual GHG inventories. The concern over emissions from deforestation prompted COP to reach two compromises at The Hague as outlined in the

The compromise position proposed by President Pronk (Decision 1/CP.6) prior to the suspension of COP6 was to (1) designate avoided deforestation and combating land degradation and desertification in non-Annex I countries as adaptation activities eligible for funding through the Adaptation Fund but not through the sale of carbon credits; (2) allow only afforestation and reforestation projects in the CDM, with measures to address non-permanence, social and environmental effects, leakage,

This was evidently the first step toward the development of the REDD mechanism. This was followed by a series of behind-the-scenes meetings between some Annex I Parties and non-Annex I Parties. Collaborations between the two Parties led to the submission of a proposal by governments of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Costa Rica (with the support of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations), to COP11 in Montreal in 2005, calling for COP to consider possible approaches to address the issue of avoided deforestation. This initiative by PNG and Costa Rica prompted COP to urge Parties to engage in a two year study of the technical, scientific, methodological, and policy and positive incentives approaches related to the issue of avoided deforestation. Hence after two deliberative workshops in Rome and Cairns, COP at its 13th meeting in 2007 in Bali, Indonesia, adopted a decision creating the REDD

The concept of REDD comes from the broader ecosystems services concept developed by ecological economist Robert Costanza et al. (1987) in their pioneering work titled, *The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital*. Costanza et al. argue that ecosystems have economic value which must be factored into the market economy if we are to slow down or halt the global destruction of the world's natural environments. Services derived from the natural environment such as "regulating services (climate or water), provisioning services (food, fresh water), supporting services (soil conservation, nutrient cycling) and cultural services (aesthetic or traditional values)" (Alvarado & Wertz-Kanounnikoff, 2008), can be accounted for, by evaluating the direct economic value of their provision. For example, how much will it cost the U.S. state of Florida to build a water purification system that can replace the natural purification functions of the Everglades wetlands system in the coast of Florida? Although some will argued that an estimate cannot be made given that the wetlands functions of the Everglades cannot be replaced by any man-made machine, the system of 'payments for environmental services' (PES) would at least in economic terms, allow for an estimate which can then be used as incentive to protect the wetlands of the Everglades. The same principle is applied with REDD whereby through direct financial

chapter.

mechanism.

**3. The concept of REDD** 

following excerpt from Karsenty (2008):

additionality and uncertainty (Karsenty, 2008).

The world's total forests area is estimated just over 4 billion hectares (Global Forest Resource Assessment [GFRA], 2010), covering more than one-quarter (31%) of the world's total land area. However, the world's forests cover varies in distribution with less than 2% in the land area in some regions like North Africa, and up to 25% in others like Europe (GFRA, 2010). Global forests also vary in cover types including the boreal forests (~ 1.3 billion hectares), the temperate forests (~ 1.0 billion hectares), and the tropical forests (~ 1.7 billion hectares) (Gorte & Sheikh, 2010). These forests play an important, but unequal role in global carbon budget as they are sinks – sequester carbon thus contribute to climate change mitigation – and sources of carbon – emits GHG, especially CO2 through deforestation. While the total carbon content of the global forests in 2005 was estimated at about 638 Gt, tropical forests store, on average, about 50% more carbon per unit area, than temperate and boreal forests. For example, with a total area of about 1.7 billion hectares, tropical forests store about 442 metric tons of CO2 per hectare of plant carbon compared to temperate and boreal forests which store only about 208 and 236 respectively (Gorte & Sheikh, 2010). Although the current rate of tropical deforestation (2010) shows an overall decrease of about 3 million hectares in the last ten years (GFRA, 2010), it is still unacceptably high given the important role forests play as sinks and sources of carbon. More so, in terms of net loss, South America and Africa which are home to two of the world's three major tropical forests regions registered the highest net loss5 of forests between 2000 and 2010 – approximately 7.3 million hectares per year (GFRA, 2010). Given that tropical forests store on average, 50% more carbon per unit area than the two other major forests types (temperate and boreal), the global decrease of carbon stock in forests (at an estimated 0.5 Gt per year between 2005 and 2010) can be attributed to the net loss in tropical forests. The release of soil carbon into the earth's atmosphere is also linked to deforestation as deforestation leads to soil exposure and disturbance (tilling), increase dead matter, and increase soil temperature and rate of soil carbon oxidation (Gorte & Sheikh, 2010). The boreal forests soils contain about 471 GtC per hectares of land, which is more than twice the amount (216 GtC) in tropical forests soils (Alvarado & Wertz-Kanounnikoff, 2008). Although tropical forests soils contain less than half the amount of

<sup>5</sup> Most of the loss was registered in the Amazonia forest in South America.

Obstacles to a Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Forest

Indonesia in 2007.

Management Under REDD in Central Africa: A Two-Country Analysis 33

It is difficult to separate deforestation from forest degradation as deforestation often paves the way for other activities that degrade the forest (Kaimowitz & Angelsen, 1999). This point is raised in the region's initial REDD proposal to the UNFCCC in 2006, in which the region's potential contribution to emissions reduction from "deforestation and degradation" is emphasized (UNFCCC/FCCC/ SBSTA/2007/MISC.14, 2007). The proposal stressed the significance of including forests degradation to the reduction mechanism, arguing that "degradation constitutes the main cause of forest cover loss, likely to affect nearly 60% of productive lands in the Congo Basin" (Alvarado & Wertz-Kanounnikoff, 2008). Also, because most of the countries in the Congo Basin already had or were in the process of developing forest degradation plans at the time the proposal was presented in 2006; they wanted to be rewarded for their early efforts (Karsenty, 2008). Even more important is that considering forests degradation as a mechanism for emissions reduction would increase overall emissions reduction than could be achieved with deforestation mechanism alone (Alvarado & Wertz-Kanounnikoff, 2008). The UNFCCC reasoned with this proposal. Recognizing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate forests degradation from deforestation in a potential reduction of forest emissions mechanism, the UNFCCC shifted from its original position which was advocating "RED" – reducing emissions from deforestation – to a one that included forest degradation – reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) – and officially endorsed the mechanism in Bali,

In line with its proposal to the UNFCCC, the Congo Basin countries have made progress in integrating forest degradation activities into the ongoing REDD pilot projects. This is shown by the current landscape of REDD activities distinguished by three groups of activities – demonstration activities, readiness activities, and activities without explicit carbon goals *–*  (Wertz-Kanounnikoff & Kongphan-apirak, 2009). Demonstration activities are those that are designed with carbon as the 'explicit objective'. Readiness activities are designed to prepare 'an enabling framework' for adopting and implementing any REDD mechanism that the UNFCCC might finally approve for a post-2012 Kyoto commitment. This includes preparing documents such as R-PINs (Readiness Plan Idea Notes) which involves capacity building through consultation with stakeholders, developing baseline projects to facilitate measuring, monitoring, and controlling emissions in order to avoid the problem of additionality, and R-PPs (Readiness Preparation Proposals) which entails developing a national strategy framework. Activities without explicit carbon goals are those designed to promote the enhancement of ecosystems management activities such as payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme, as well as sustainable development activities such as poverty reduction scheme. Most countries in the region are currently engaged in readiness activities with

progress been made by Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

However, the region's ability to make meaningful contribution to emissions reduction could be tampered by a number of problems including – the inability to control emissions beyond project and country boundaries as reduced emissions in the region could be linked to increased emissions in industrialized nations (leakage), the issue of determining how much deforestation has been avoided and how much deforestation is too much deforestation (base-line), the limited ability of understanding how to deal with emissions on a long-term bases and avoiding short-lived benefits (permanence), the limited ability to respond to the demand for carbon credits as determined by the opportunity cost and the cost of implementing the REDD (price) and, dealing with issues of ownership of the land and illegal logging control caused by weak economic, political and legal structures, and poor

carbon in boreal forests soils, the high level of activities (agriculture, mining, ranching, road development, etc) in tropical forests soils leads to more release of soil carbon into the earth's atmosphere.


(Area in billion hectares; carbon in metric tons of CO2 per hectare) Source: Adapted from Gorte & Sheikh (2010)

Table 1. Average Carbon Stocks in the World's major Forests

In all, the IPCC estimates that deforestation contributes approximately 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC, 2007), which is equivalent to about 5.8 Gt of CO2 per year (UN-REDD, 2010). According to the IPCC, reduced deforestation and degradation is the forest mitigation option, as it has the largest and most immediate carbon stock impact with approximately 93% of the total mitigation potential in the tropics (IPCC, 2007). This also has direct positive implications for the natural environment, notably in the area of biodiversity conservation, as well as indirect positive implications for sustainable development, notably in the area of poverty reduction in developing countries in the tropics. Therefore, the mitigation of tropical deforestation and forests degradation is crucial in the fight against climate change. It is in this regard therefore, following the IPCC decision in 2007 establishing the REDD mechanism, that the conceptual framework for managing forests in developing countries has been in progress since 2008.
