Keep the Jungle Alive

‘REDD’ Forests Help Cool Down Earth

Want to bolster the fight against climate change? Try saving forests.

Protecting forests, it turns out, is an effective and less costly way of reducing carbon emissions.

• Forests amass some 300 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to 40 times the global greenhouse gas emissions each year that cause global warming.
• Destruction of forests account for 15 percent of global emissions by human activity, far surpassing combined emissions of vehicles and aircraft.
• Indonesia, where forests are rapidly disappearing, now ranks third in emissions following industrial powers U.S. and China. Non-profit group Greenpeace approximates more than 182 million acres of forests in the developing Asian nation were destroyed or degraded since 1950.

What is REDD?

A ground-breaking project by the United Nations is seeking to get this target done. Dubbed as REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, the project provides financial incentives to prevent forest destruction.

REDD works this way, by keeping forests undamaged, carbon emissions are prevented from being spewed out into the Earth’s atmosphere. These carbon savings can be converted to carbon-offset credits that are purchased by wealthy nations and firms seeking to meet U.N. emissions-reduction targets. Revenues generated from the sale of credits are then invested back to protecting forests and enhancing the livelihoods of communities living near the forests. By this means, people will be enticed to protect forests rather than destroy them.

• REDD revenues could make available some USD30 billion each year to developing nations that seek financing from the developed world to help adapt to climate change.

Pros and Cons of REDD

REDD’s advocates  believe that the project would help alleviate poverty, protect rain forests and endangered species, and encourage capitalists to take part in the fight against climate change.

Conservationists, however, slam how REDD is funded, opposing the use of carbon trading, which they say still allows pollution to continue.  

The sustainability of REDD projects has also been questioned. Some fear that stopping deforestation in one area might only drive loggers to destroy other forests. Others worry how to ensure that a forest stays protected, while some argue that it is difficult to quantify the amount of carbon stored in forests. 

Indonesian REDD Model

In the Indonesian province of Aceh, the Ulu Masen forest that spans 1.9 million acres is poised to be the first REDD scheme to sell carbon credits. London-based conservation group Fauna and Flora International, or FFI, is helping the Aceh government design and implement its Ulu Masen REDD scheme.

• Preserving Ulu Masen could help save some 100 million tons of carbon over the next 30 years, or equivalent to 50 million flights from London to Sydney.
• Ulu Masen is seen to raise USD26 million in carbon credits in its first five years.
• The Ulu Masen REDD project also attracted private financing with U.S. bank Meryll Lynch committing USD9 million for the project over a four-year period.

Profits generated by Ulu Masen’s REDD scheme will not only help to deter clearing of forests for palm oil plantations, but also fund biodiversity projects. In addition, according to a research by the University of Queensland in Australia, Ulu Masen is home to endangered animals such as the orangutan and Borneo rhino.

Protecting Ulu Masen has also helped to provide jobs to former combatants in Aceh. Some members of the separatist group Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, are now community rangers, who are taught survival skills, navigation, climbing, and search and rescue.

FFI has six other REDD schemes – three in Indonesia and the rest in Cambodia, Ecuador and Liberia.

The Political Dimension of Climate Change Fight

A U.N.-managed REDD fund should be put in place to finance priority anti-deforestation projects in the Amazon, Indonesia and Congo, says Greenpeace. The group says the fund should mobilize some USD40 billion each year, arguing that the money is only about a quarter of the U.S. bailout funding for insurance group AIG. Greenpeace claims that the lacking is not funding but political will.

Meanwhile, in a 2009 climate summit in Los Angeles, USA, more than 30 sub-national leaders including representatives from the U.S. and Brazil called for the inclusion of  REDD in the global framework of combating climate change.

Source:

Andrew Marshall, “Keep the Jungle Alive,” Time Magazine, November 30, 2009, pp. 30-35.