Ready for REDD
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REDD could save Kohistan's deodar forests
I was in Bangkok recently, attending the UN climate negotiations which will hopefully lead to a strong global treaty on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Amongst the many interesting proposals being discussed to control global carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions (which are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise) was the idea of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, or REDD. Coming from Pakistan, a country where the “timber mafia” has been largely responsible for bringing our forest cover down to just around 4%, with massive deforestation occurring in the 1990s, I wanted to find out all I could about REDD.
Scientists estimate that around 17% of global carbon emissions are the result of deforestation. The cutting of trees and clearing of forests is causing the emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Trees absorb carbon while they’re growing, and store it while they are mature. They release it when they decay or are burnt, and deforestation also releases carbon stored in the soil. Forests therefore are important in any initiative to combat climate change. REDD proposes that forests are more valuable standing than cut down. They serve as water catchments, as homes for biodiversity and indigenous peoples, and as carbon storage. It would make sense for the world to start paying for these free, living services rather than clearing the forests for logging and turning them into plantations or ranches (or agricultural land).
REDD is a mechanism for financially compensating countries for reducing emissions from deforestation. The hope is to reduce deforestation by 50% by 2020. The Bali Roadmap agreed by UN member countries at their 2007 climate summit said the world would take two years to negotiate REDD in its final form. The final decision about what REDD will look like and what it will include needs to be agreed by COP-15 (the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Convention, the formal title of the 2009 summit being held in Copenhagen in December.
Thanks to remote imaging via satellite, it is now much easier to measure the amount of forest cover in any given country, so forested land can easily be monitored from up above. Currently the insatiable demand for timber and ranch land (especially in the Amazon) is causing massive damage to the world’s remaining forests. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Forest Resources Assessment in 2006, roughly 13 million hectares of forest land are currently being converted to other land uses each year, so the problem is immense.
In Pakistan massive deforestation started in the 1990s as remote areas opened up with the construction of roads. The greatest victims were the conifer forests in the Himalayan belt. Although a ban on logging is now in place, local communities continue to be seduced by commercial timber prospects. Trees are cut and sold to contractors (part of the notorious timber mafia) who get rich overnight while the forest communities remain impoverished.
I remember seeing piles of deodar wood lined up on the Karakoram Highway in Kohistan on a visit a couple of years ago. I was shocked, but was told this was “old timber” cut before the ban on logging was enforced after floods hit the North-West Frontier Province in the 90s. Of course, that was not true. Today there is a clear nexus between the timber mafia and the Taliban. Wherever the Taliban grab power (in Swat and Waziristan, for example), the forest is cut down and exploited with no regard to consequences (during the massive earthquake that struck Pakistan in 2005, most of the damage caused was due to landslides caused by deforestation).
The Pakistan government needs to act urgently to save what little forest cover remains. It is not enough to plant new trees or restore degraded forests in touristy areas like Murree. Deodar trees take centuries to mature: we have some thick forests left up north, and they should be saved. A strong REDD mechanism could galvanise the government into action. Given the incentive of financial compensation, ministers might actually think it is worth their while to move against the influential timber mafia and save these old forests.
How much money would actually reach forest communities is an issue that still needs to be clarified. There are funding and verification issues to work out as well. REDD is a very challenging initiative. Already in Bangkok there was uproar during the last day of negotiations when, despite support from some 20 countries, the European Union blocked language to prevent the conversion of natural forests to plantations.
The provision for “…safeguards against the conversion of natural forests to forest plantations” was apparently cut from the negotiating text. Countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, Switzerland and Norway strongly requested that the safeguard be reinstated in text to be taken up at the Barcelona climate talks inNovember – the last talks before Copenhagen.
The EU (chaired by Sweden) effectively refused the reinstatement. “The logging agenda has come prominently into the spotlight… our worst fears became manifest”, said Sean Cadman of the Wilderness Society (an NGO committed to saving forests). “The EU’s behaviour is a disgrace. They need to take a strong position in protecting the forests and not funding the logging industry!”
Without forest protection as a key priority, it would seem that the whole idea behind REDD could be derailed. Let’s hope the big lumber importing firms (who have their head offices in European cities!) are not able to sabotage an initiative that could save the planet’s precious forests.
