Deforestation vs. Global warming
African deforestation pays off for industrialised countries

afrol.com, 9 November - Relying on forest plantations to store carbon pollution from the atmosphere and combat climate change could accelerate the destruction of old-growth native forest in Africa and around the world, according to a report commissioned by Greenpeace and the conservation organisation WWF. 

The report, released today, challenges the assumption that carbon storage in trees, which the disputed Kyoto Protocol opens for, will yield environmental benefits. It concludes instead, "the economics of the developing carbon sequestration market is becoming an additional driver for clearing native forests." The report is based on a case study in Australian Tasmania, and shows how Japan earns "carbon credits" by clearing old-growth native forest on the Australian island, thus being able to increase its own carbon emissions. This could very soon be a reality on the African continent as well.

Whether industrialised nations will be allowed to gamble on forests as temporary carbon stores at home and abroad, rather than reduce emissions of global warming gases at source, is one of the most controversial topics in two weeks of intergovernmental negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol that open in The Hague, Holland, on Monday 13 November. Under the Protocol, industrialized nations have to reduce their emissions 5 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The United States, Japan, Australia and Canada want to avoid domestic efforts to control their rapidly growing carbon emissions from energy use by counting forest carbon storage and so claim to be meeting their Kyoto targets. Furthermore, the Protocol contains a perverse incentive in allowing countries to claim a carbon credit for planting trees but not incur a carbon debit for deforestation.

Porter Bridge Road, Tasmania.  © Photo: Native Forest Network.

Today's report, entitled "The Clearcut Case: How the Kyoto Protocol Could Become a Driver for Deforestation", examines a number of Australian projects as case studies of what could emerge as a dangerous new international threat to forests and the species they support. 

The report outlines how Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan's largest power utility, is implicated in the destruction of native forest in the Tamar Valley in the Australian state of Tasmania, and its replacement by fast-growing eucalyptus plantations intended for carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. TEPCO's investment of Aus$ 10 million (ca. US$ 5 million) in Tamar Tree Farms accounts for 3,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantation which are expected to yield TEPCO 130,000 tonnes of carbon credits that could be offset against rising carbon emissions in Japan. The report shows how this project is not an isolated incident but is compatible with the forest-clearance programmes of the Australian and Tasmanian authorities.

In the same way, European or American logging companies could serve their countries by deforesting the few remaining frontier forrests of Africa and replacing them with plantation trees. This would earn their Governments carbon credits, leaving their country free to further increase their carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the African nations are presented as the environmental sinners. It is a win-win situation for the rich countries and a loose-loose situation for African countries.

"Claiming credit for carbon stored in trees is a blatant attempt by some countries to cheat on their Kyoto commitments," said Bill Hare, Greenpeace's Climate Policy Director. "This report shows that it is also bad for the environment, leading in some cases to the destruction of old-growth forest to make way for 'carbon-sink' plantations."

"The only way to combat climate change is through deep cuts in emissions of global warming gases," said Jennifer Morgan, Director of WWF's Climate Change Campaign. "The Tasmania project is an example of what could go terribly wrong for forests around the world if Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States get their way. We could see native forest destruction accelerate but still see no benefit for the global climate. This is potentially the largest of a number of loopholes in the Kyoto climate treaty that governments urgently need to close."

The threat to forest conservation will be exacerbated if decisions on Kyoto's "Clean Development Mechanism" promote 'carbon sinks' projects by industrialised nations in developing countries, where gathering of accurate data on forests would be considerably more difficult than in Tasmania. 

"The global forest commons is facing its biggest challenge since the Industrial Revolution," said report author Tim Cadman of the Native Forest Network. "Many forest-dependent species are on the brink of destruction. How ironic it would be if the Kyoto Protocol were complicit in sending some of them over the edge."

Proposals for relying on plantations to soak up carbon overlook the vulnerability of forests to global warming, and the urgency of cutting emissions. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose Second Assessment Report from 1995 is the current international scientific consensus on climate change, one third of the world's forests will undergo major changes as a result of global warming. Entire forest types may disappear and large amounts of carbon could be released into the atmosphere during transitions from one forest type to another. 

Source: Based on WWF / Greenpeace

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