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| © Harvesting timber from a primary forest in Brazil. Roberto Faidutti, FAO. |
Whilst climate change is a threat to forest biodiversity, the restoration of natural ecosystems, including forests, can help us to address climate change whilst realizing other benefits such as livelihoods and watershed protection.
Mitigation measures to reduce the sources of greenhouse gases or enhance their sinks must also include the conservation of existing stores of carbon in ecosystems such as forests and bogs.
Reducing emissions from deforestation
Despite the fact that 20-25% of global greenhouse gas emissions result from tropical deforestation and subsequent land use, neither the UNFCCC nor its Kyoto Protocol have contained any provisions for limiting tropical deforestation until now. As a result of an initiative taken by several Parties, the issue of reducing emissions from deforestation (RED or 'avoided deforestation') in developing countries has been discussed at UNFCCC meetings since 2005. At the 13th Conference of Parties (COP-13) in December 2007, Parties agreed to strengthen efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (hence, REDD rather than RED). These efforts will include demonstration activities following the indicative guidance included in the Decision. The overarching "Bali action plan" from the COP establishes an Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention, which will report in 2009 to COP-15 on a proposed successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. REDD will be one of the issues considered by this group and by COP-15.
Two UNFCCC expert workshops have been held on RED (August/September 2006 in Rome and March 2007 in Cairns), and another is requested in the COP-13 Decision. UNEP, via UNEP-WCMC, presented and submitted a paper on opportunities for multiple benefits and associated risks at the second workshop. At COP-13, a paper was released on the factors that could influence these benefits. REDD has clear potential benefits for biodiversity and other ecosystem services, but there are also risks that must be considered.
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Afforestation and forest restoration
Capturing carbon dioxide by creating or restoring forests can also be of benefit to biodiversity and to ecosystem services such as coastal protection or watershed regulation. The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC allows afforestation and reforestation projects; but there is little uptake as yet. There is also a growing voluntary market in tree planting to offset carbon dioxide emissions. There is some debate over its effectiveness.
It seems very likely that native forests will be more resilient to climate change than plantation forests, and so their retention or restoration offers a better mitigation measure in the long term than the creation of plantations. The Forest Restoration Information Service at UNEP-WCMC offers information on forest restoration and forest landscape restoration, including case studies, definitions and a projects database.
Afforestation of non-forested ecosystems such as peat bogs can result in loss of valuable wildlife habitat, and the use of non-native species is likely to result in less new habitat for forest species. Multi-sectoral decision-making is crucial to ensuring that the potential for multiple benefits are realised.
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