‘Incentives Offered to Destroy Forests’
Instead of providing positive incentives to tropical nations to conserve their rainforests and so reduce greenhouse gases emissions, the world indirectly gives “perverse incentives” to destroy them by demanding goods produced by intensive logging, a leading environmental activist says.
VIENNA - “The Kyoto protocol does not give incentives to rainforest nations to protect their forests,” Kevin Conrad, special envoy of the environment and climate change permanent mission of Papua New Guinea to the United Nations told IPS.
The Kyoto protocol is the international agreement that establishes how industrialised countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by an average of five percent relative to 1990 levels. The treaty does not assign targets to developing nations.
One of the instruments of the Kyoto protocol is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an arrangement that allows industrialised countries with a GHG reduction commitment to invest in projects in developing countries that reduce emissions. This then counts towards their domestic ‘clean’ record. Conservation of rainforests is not included in such projects.
Between 1989 and 1995, global emissions as a result of deforestation amounted to 5,000 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, studies show.
“Instead of giving us incentives to protect our forests, the world gives countries like mine incentives to destroy them,” Conrad said. Coffee, soy beans, sugar, flowers and wood furniture, he said, can only be produced in developing countries through systematic deforestation.
“Tropical rainforest nations deserve to be treated equally,” Conrad said. “If we reduce deforestation, we must receive fair compensation for reductions. A tonne (of carbon dioxide) is a tonne is a tonne.”
Conrad is also executive director of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations (CRN), a worldwide coalition of developing countries with significant rainforests cover. The coalition has a secretariat at Columbia University in New York, and facilitates development of proactive strategies towards environmentally sustainable economic growth.
Among the causes of deforestation in developing countries, other than the production of export goods, appear to be the need for cheap energy, and infrastructure projects, such as roads, mining and power lines.
Deforestation is particularly dramatic in Brazil and Indonesia, where some five million hectares of forest are lost every year due to such causes, and more recently, the plantation of palm trees to produce bio-fuels.
Other tropical countries such as Sudan, Burma and Zambia lose more than 400,000 hectares per year of forest. Africa is losing the most forest, with some five million hectares lost every year between 1990 and 2000, according to the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA).
The RFA, produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in cooperation with governments and specialists in the field, is a comprehensive assessment of forests.
Conrad told IPS that loss of rainforest has a large environmental impact, from degradation of the quality of water in lakes and rivers to decimation of biological diversity, damage to ecosystems, and prevention of natural processes such as pollination.
According to CRN, deforestation threatens to annihilate some 60 percent of all species.
Conversely, protecting rainforests represents major benefits for the environment, since it is a significant source of carbon emission reductions outside the framework of the Kyoto protocol. In addition, it can create substantial new revenue streams to addresses poverty in rural areas.
Conrad has called for a new approach to conserving rainforests, to be considered in negotiations towards a new international framework on climate change from 2012, when the operative period of the Kyoto protocol ends. The proposal is likely to come up at the conference the United Nations is organising in Bali in Indonesia in December.
According to the CRN, a new approach should begin in 2008. Conrad said new initiatives must consider both aforestation and reforestation. Aforestastion is the artificial establishment of forests in non-forest land, while reforestation is re-establishment of forest in an area previously under forest cover.
© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service
Does the Kyoto Accord address the overpopulation problem that underlies deforestation?
Of course it doesnt.
Because people dont want to accept that too many humans is a bad thing.
The “carbon credit” deal is a shell game. Industrial Polluters can ‘buy’ credits from indigenous peoples whose biggest carbon output is their outboard motors. The pollution levels don’t go down. The polluters also “borrow” carbon sinks, read other people’s forests and jungles, under the pretense that a tree in Colombia will absorb carbon from Boston.
A group of industrialists, and their paid for environmentalists and government shills, dreamed this scheme up and the general public has been looking for the truth ever since.
the solution to saving our rainforests is Hemp
“Deforestation and Hemp: How to Stop Global Warming”
http://www.chycho.com/?q=Deforestation_Hemp_Global_Warming
A recent report from the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme states that while the “transport and industry” sector accounts for 14 percent of global CO2 emissions, deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere.
The urgency implied in the statistics presented in this report can not be over emphasized. Deforestation “in the next four years alone”, will “pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than every flight in the history of aviation to at least 2025.” “According to the latest audited figures from 2003, two billion tons of CO2 enters the atmosphere every year from deforestation. That destruction amounts to 50 million acres - or an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland felled annually.”
The report states that to help stop global warming “the political will and a system of enforcement and incentives” are required that make “trees worth more to governments and individuals standing than felled.” However, this is extremely shortsighted, since our consumption of paper can not be curtailed in time to save the environment, especially considering that “for every 100 pounds of trash we throw away, 35 pounds is paper.”
This problem is even further exasperated by the propaganda being produced by the pulp and paper industry. These corporations continually release reports claiming that forests are a renewable resource and that they are “committed to recovering 50% of all the paper Americans use.”
A fifty percent return rate means that we are on a fast track to destruction, especially if you consider that casinos make billions of dollars by having slot machine return rates as high as 98-99%. The minimum legal payout percentage for slot machines in “Nevada is 75 percent and in New Jersey is 83 percent.” This means that if we apply the same legal standards, that bankrupts millions of people around the world, to the pulp and paper industry, they would be considered thieves and immediately put out of business. Then why are we allowing this shortsightedness to destroy the environment and the future of generations to come?
Unfortunately our governments are just as guilty of producing misleading propaganda, maintaining the status quo. The US government has even created a children’s websites claiming that for every tree that is cut down, “another is planted to replace it”, conveniently forgetting to mention that a sapling does not have the same environmental benefits as a large tree and that it may take decades for it to reach maturity, if it actually reaches maturity. This claim that “paper companies plant trees specifically for papermaking, much like an apple farmer grows apple trees to produce apples.” even becomes more absurd when you consider that afforestation is only a historically recent practice.
There is however a solution, but it must be implemented immediately to reduce CO2 emissions, allowing the environment ample time to rejuvenate before we reach the point of no return. The solution is Hemp, a variant species of Cannabis, and its use is as old as civilization itself.
The United States of America initiated the global war on Hemp in the “early parts of the 20th century.” It was a multi faceted program geared to increase profits for the oil and the pulp and paper industries, and to create a two-tear social system. Propaganda and coercion were used to manipulate world opinion into accepting this agenda. These tactics were and are frighteningly similar to those used to wage war in the Middle East, and unfortunately with the help of the media the United States has been able to, until recently, criminalize the production of Hemp.
Cannabis products span the consumer spectrum making it the only plant in the world that can help us curb global warming. It has “over 25,000 potential uses.” It rejuvenates the soil, it can replace wood products saving our forests, it is medicinal, it can be used as a building material, textiles, paint & plastic, fuel, paper, food and body care. For a great introduction to the benefits and potential uses of hemp see the following documentary: “Hemp Revolution” Part 1 (33:40) and Part 2 (39:04).
The Global Canopy report continues to state that “forests offer the single largest opportunity for cost-effective and immediate reductions of carbon emissions”, and that “If we lose (our) forests, we lose the fight against climate change.” Considering that “more than 50 per cent of life on Earth is in tropical forests, which cover less than 7 per cent of the planet’s surface”, is it not about time that we began to preserve our natural habitats?
To help stop what indigenous elders have called “Mother Earth is crying,” we need to stop the war on Cannabis. Even though we were manipulated into accepting a war that has cost us billions of dollars and million of lives, it’s time for us to grow up, accept responsibility, and make changes. To reduce our contribution to global warming we must begin the cultivation and consumption of hemp en masse globally.
Only after the last tree falls will they finally realize what they’ve done. Their greed and money has blinded them to everything that is good in this world and has disturbed the balance between man and nature. Please think about what you are doing. It takes a long time for a forest to form.
Man cannot destroy the planet. He can only destroy himself. The world will recover quickly after man is gone and proceed right along without him.
ezeflyer:
“Does the Kyoto Accord address the overpopulation problem that underlies deforestation?”
No, of course not. Overpopulation underlies all the problems in the World…ALL!
Blindness to overpopulation is the worst of all possible blindspots.
At the first Earth Day, 1970, the world population was about 4 billion. That generated great concern.
In 1988 the world population hit 5 billion with barely any mention.
We’re now at 6.5 billion and …. oh well, you can see where it’s going.
Along the way, there is concerted effort to bring the world’s poor into first world consumption.
The favelas in Rio de Janeiro are largely the result of diplaced populations from rural areas having grown for over a century. There is a consciousness being translated into community action networks in the favelas that regard problems as the source of their own resolution. The creativity of these lives reflect the maxim that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’.
In 2000 Catalytic Communities was formed. It is evolving into a worldwide network of grassroots community projects exchanging information and contacts for support. Take a look and take heart. Contribute if you can, share your knowledge with the data base especially if you’re involved with projects in your own community. This form of globalization is occurring and precious little is known about it in the US.
http://www.comcat.org/english/casa.asp
Read: Jared Diamond’s “Collapse: How Societies Decide to Fail or Succeed”
MHO: Things don’t look too good for Planet Earth if the “global” economy and populations continue the way they are. Corporations are way out of control, deliberately misleading information is rampant, overpopulation is and will be a continuous problem unless nature does it for us (and she eventually will) and as this article points out, there are not enough incentives to do the “right” thing.
Deforestration in 3rd world countries? and did we forget to add huge profits msade from out of those countries investers and the absolute availability of in country CHEAP LABOR?
People you can run away from it all you want but What Was written and made into a 2nd rate movie decades ago is coming into reality.
SOLENT GREEN! IS HERE RIGHT NOW. oh and the NAME OF THE BOOK that Soylent Green came from is NO Room No Room. For you several overpopulation mentioners.
If we want to save rain forests just stop buying all the junk we do. Reuse everything then recycle it. As far as overpopulation? take any tax breaks away from large families. Make it easier for people to adopt,and yes start thinking of coming up with an age of humans where it would be legal and accepted for them to as the Movie Soylent Green put it TO GO HOME.
We have and have always had the power to stop what is going on in this world, but instead we stop at Walmart and McDonalds every dam day
It’s the good reason to grow weed. Mary Jane takes more from the atmosphere than any other oil producing plant and it gives it all to the soil. Its the only good argument for it. As a carpenter I would rather be cutting it than any other composite material made with wood and filled with toxic glues (that we could make from the oil we gather from the plant as well). It could be a win/win situation. I’m surprised these things aren’t mentioned in small nations. Fiber, oil, beneficial soil development and medicine. There is a hemp based epoxy already made for boat building and fiberglassing. It seems to be a very under-utilized plant. No, I don’t want my doctor or airplane pilot medicated on it but my librarian might be more interestingly knowledgeable. There is a reason they call it dope. The “Fringies” might have made this posting seem trite from all their diatribe, so don’t look at it like a calling for medicinal use, just industrial. You could pay your taxes with it once in this USA, fiber that is.
Read salvia’s post again.