ndia demands change in the definition of forest
24 Feb 2008, 1430 hrs IST,PTI
NEW DELHI: India has asked the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board, set up under the Kyoto Protocol, to change the definition of "forest" for the country so as to encourage small farmers to take up the projects in the forestry sector.
As per current definition of a "forest", only that project can be qualified for the CDM provided it is grown within the 30 per cent crown density in an area of 0.05 hectares with tree height of five metres.
"Now we have requested the concerned body to relax the definition for forests making it 15 per cent crown density with two metres height for trees, with the land area remaining at 0.05 hectares," R K Sethi, Chairman of the CDM Executive Board said.
"The change in definition is being sought given that small communities and farmers are not able to take up afforestation and take the benefits of growing carbon credits market," he said.
India is a global leader in CDM projects but none is from the forestry sector, Sethi pointed.
The new norms if approved would help the local farmers to grow dwarf varieties of tree alongside the seasonal crops - ensuring that they do not have to give away their agricultural income.
"The small varieties of trees would take less time and earn carbon credits fast," he said.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
India, China to work on `carbon sinks`
Aasha Khosa / New Delhi March 09, 2008
Having pushed the idea that countries should be compensated for conservation of forests at the UN convention on climate change at Bali, India is once again in a leading role to make this happen.
New Delhi has invited China, that had supported India’s idea vociferously, and all other developing nations to a two-day meet where scientists and policy makers are discussing ways to quantify ‘carbon sinks’ — which in the layman’s terms means the amounts of harmful green house gases (GHG) that a particular forest has guzzled up and thereby helped climate change mitigation.
The international workshop on “developing methodology for assessment of enhancement of forest carbon stocks due to conservation, sustainable management of forests and increase in forest cover” organised by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, saw scientists from China, Bhutan Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea converge at New Delhi.
Brazil, which supports a variation of the same idea on compensating forest cover gave the conference a miss. So did Indonesia, which has sizable stocks of forests.
Jagdish Kishwan, director general, ICFRE, said the meeting would aim at converging all available technologies to adopt a common approach to quantify carbon sinks.
Says Kishwan, who was present at Bali: A study by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science has reported that India would increase its carbon stocks from forests to 9.75 billion tonnes in 2030 from the present level of 8.79 billion tonnes.
The figures are an approximate assessment of the carbon worth of the forests in India. The government wants to identify a methodology acceptable to the world to measure the carbon stocks available in the forests.
The UN Inter-government Panel on Climate Change has in place a regime of compensation for reduction of GHG emissions by companies in the developed countries. They can buy ‘carbon credits’ from the companies of developing countries in case they are unable to meet their targets.
India and China are claiming to have recorded an increase in their green cover and want a similar regime for compensating forest cover.
The scientists at the meet said while the modern satellite-based and remote sensing techniques were helpful and affordable, the cost of hiring experts and data analysts was likely to grow.
Jiang Chungian, head of the Research Institute of Chinese Forestry, Beijing, said China and India would continue to remain partners in their common strategy at the global conference on climate change.
Aasha Khosa / New Delhi March 09, 2008
Having pushed the idea that countries should be compensated for conservation of forests at the UN convention on climate change at Bali, India is once again in a leading role to make this happen.
New Delhi has invited China, that had supported India’s idea vociferously, and all other developing nations to a two-day meet where scientists and policy makers are discussing ways to quantify ‘carbon sinks’ — which in the layman’s terms means the amounts of harmful green house gases (GHG) that a particular forest has guzzled up and thereby helped climate change mitigation.
The international workshop on “developing methodology for assessment of enhancement of forest carbon stocks due to conservation, sustainable management of forests and increase in forest cover” organised by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, saw scientists from China, Bhutan Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea converge at New Delhi.
Brazil, which supports a variation of the same idea on compensating forest cover gave the conference a miss. So did Indonesia, which has sizable stocks of forests.
Jagdish Kishwan, director general, ICFRE, said the meeting would aim at converging all available technologies to adopt a common approach to quantify carbon sinks.
Says Kishwan, who was present at Bali: A study by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science has reported that India would increase its carbon stocks from forests to 9.75 billion tonnes in 2030 from the present level of 8.79 billion tonnes.
The figures are an approximate assessment of the carbon worth of the forests in India. The government wants to identify a methodology acceptable to the world to measure the carbon stocks available in the forests.
The UN Inter-government Panel on Climate Change has in place a regime of compensation for reduction of GHG emissions by companies in the developed countries. They can buy ‘carbon credits’ from the companies of developing countries in case they are unable to meet their targets.
India and China are claiming to have recorded an increase in their green cover and want a similar regime for compensating forest cover.
The scientists at the meet said while the modern satellite-based and remote sensing techniques were helpful and affordable, the cost of hiring experts and data analysts was likely to grow.
Jiang Chungian, head of the Research Institute of Chinese Forestry, Beijing, said China and India would continue to remain partners in their common strategy at the global conference on climate change.
Developing countries call for funds to increase forest cover
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Monday , March 10, 2008 at 0022 hrs
New Delhi, Mar 9A group of developing countries has called for financial incentives for increase in forest cover, conservation and sustainable management with a view to combat climate change.
Taking the cue from the Bali declaration on the pay-and-preserve scheme for reducing emissions from reducing deforestation in developing countries (REDD), the two-day international workshop organised by Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) which concluded in Delhi last Saturday called for financial assistance for maintenance and stabilisation of forest resources as well as for capacity building. ICFRE is under the administrative control of the Union ministry of environment and forests.
It went a step ahead of REDD in demanding equal incentives for increase in forest cover and sustainable management and conservation of forests
The recommendations of the workshop called for compensation for reducing deforestation, conservation and sustainable management of forests. Countries should also demonstrate enhancement of carbon stock to meet the objectives of UNFCCC, it said.
As maintenance, stabilization and conservation of forest resources involve opportunity cost, the developing countries require financial assistance and incentives, the recommendations said and also called for same basket of funds for increase in forest cover and reduced deforestation and degradation as well. As similar enhancement of carbon stock imply similar value and as eco-system services have additional value, the rate of incentives should be the same for one unit of carbon saved through reduced deforestation and degradation and one unit of carbon added through conservation of forests. Evaluation of baseline carbon stock should be considered including one time payment at reduced rates, the workshop resolved.
The international workshop was organized to discuss the possible methodological approaches and modalities for assessing positive increment in forest carbon stocks due to increase in forest cover, conservation and sustainable management of forests. The workshop had participations from forest departments and forestry institutes of China, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan, Malaysia and UK apart from India.
The sole representative from Annex-1 (industrial) countries, Jim Penman of UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), however, opposed certain parts of the resolutions relating to financing incentives. He suggested that the conclusions of the workshop should not be termed as “resolutions” and it should be better termed as a “views expressed by different participants.” On capacity building, the workshop called for the need to develop expertise in modern technological tools to assess forest carbon pools and changes therein, financial assistance for capacity building in developing countries and sharing of facilities and resources for capacity building among developing countries.
On technological issues, the workshop suggested a common methodology for assessment of changes in forest carbon stocks, national level accounting mechanism and national reference emissions level linked to country specific baseline year or period. It also suggested remote sensing combined with field inventory as an important and cost effective toll in assessing and verifying forest carbon stocks. A blue print for national forest carbon estimation should be formulated for developing countries.
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Monday , March 10, 2008 at 0022 hrs
New Delhi, Mar 9A group of developing countries has called for financial incentives for increase in forest cover, conservation and sustainable management with a view to combat climate change.
Taking the cue from the Bali declaration on the pay-and-preserve scheme for reducing emissions from reducing deforestation in developing countries (REDD), the two-day international workshop organised by Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) which concluded in Delhi last Saturday called for financial assistance for maintenance and stabilisation of forest resources as well as for capacity building. ICFRE is under the administrative control of the Union ministry of environment and forests.
It went a step ahead of REDD in demanding equal incentives for increase in forest cover and sustainable management and conservation of forests
The recommendations of the workshop called for compensation for reducing deforestation, conservation and sustainable management of forests. Countries should also demonstrate enhancement of carbon stock to meet the objectives of UNFCCC, it said.
As maintenance, stabilization and conservation of forest resources involve opportunity cost, the developing countries require financial assistance and incentives, the recommendations said and also called for same basket of funds for increase in forest cover and reduced deforestation and degradation as well. As similar enhancement of carbon stock imply similar value and as eco-system services have additional value, the rate of incentives should be the same for one unit of carbon saved through reduced deforestation and degradation and one unit of carbon added through conservation of forests. Evaluation of baseline carbon stock should be considered including one time payment at reduced rates, the workshop resolved.
The international workshop was organized to discuss the possible methodological approaches and modalities for assessing positive increment in forest carbon stocks due to increase in forest cover, conservation and sustainable management of forests. The workshop had participations from forest departments and forestry institutes of China, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan, Malaysia and UK apart from India.
The sole representative from Annex-1 (industrial) countries, Jim Penman of UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), however, opposed certain parts of the resolutions relating to financing incentives. He suggested that the conclusions of the workshop should not be termed as “resolutions” and it should be better termed as a “views expressed by different participants.” On capacity building, the workshop called for the need to develop expertise in modern technological tools to assess forest carbon pools and changes therein, financial assistance for capacity building in developing countries and sharing of facilities and resources for capacity building among developing countries.
On technological issues, the workshop suggested a common methodology for assessment of changes in forest carbon stocks, national level accounting mechanism and national reference emissions level linked to country specific baseline year or period. It also suggested remote sensing combined with field inventory as an important and cost effective toll in assessing and verifying forest carbon stocks. A blue print for national forest carbon estimation should be formulated for developing countries.
Slowing deforestation may be worth billions: study
Mon Apr 7, 2008 12:44pm BST
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - A slowdown of deforestation from the Amazon to the Congo basin could generate billions of dollars every year for developing nations as part of a U.N. scheme to fight climate change, a study showed on Monday.
Burning of forests by farmers clearing land accounts for 20 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions. A 190-nation U.N. climate conference agreed in Bali, Indonesia, in December to work on ways to reward countries for slowing deforestation.
"Even with quite conservative assumptions, you can generate substantial amounts of money and emissions reductions," said Johannes Ebeling of EcoSecurities in Oxford, England, of a study with Mai Yasue at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
They said a 10 percent decline in the rate of tropical forest loss could generate annual carbon finance for developing nations of between 1.5 billion and 9.1 billion euros ($2.4 to $14.30 billion) assuming carbon prices of 5 to 30 euros a tonne.
Such curbs would represent about 300 million tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide emissions a year -- about the amount of heat-trapping gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, emitted by Turkey, or half the total of France.
The United Nations wants reduced emissions from deforestation to be part of a new long-term climate treaty beyond 2012 to help avert more droughts, heatwaves, outbreaks of disease and rising seas.
Ebeling told Reuters that any credits for avoided deforestation would have to be matched by tough restrictions elsewhere, for instance forcing coal-fired power plants or cement factories to pay for right to emit carbon dioxide.
BRAZIL
The study, published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, said there were big challenges in designing a fair system.
So far, most focus in the U.N. debate had been on rewarding countries with high deforestation rates -- such as Brazil and Ecuador -- for slowing the losses.
But nations such as Guyana or Suriname, which have maintained high forest cover, or others like Costa Rica and Chile, which have slowed or reversed deforestation, would gain little.
There were also problems such as judging the rate of deforestation or creating controls to ensure that protecting one forest does not lead to logging or clearance of another.
And some poor countries that could benefit -- such as Liberia or Myanmar -- may simply lack controls needed to regulate land use.
Still, Ebeling said he was optimistic a system could be worked out because of a widening political willingness to address deforestation as part of a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2013.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Editing by Mary Gabriel)
Mon Apr 7, 2008 12:44pm BST
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - A slowdown of deforestation from the Amazon to the Congo basin could generate billions of dollars every year for developing nations as part of a U.N. scheme to fight climate change, a study showed on Monday.
Burning of forests by farmers clearing land accounts for 20 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions. A 190-nation U.N. climate conference agreed in Bali, Indonesia, in December to work on ways to reward countries for slowing deforestation.
"Even with quite conservative assumptions, you can generate substantial amounts of money and emissions reductions," said Johannes Ebeling of EcoSecurities in Oxford, England, of a study with Mai Yasue at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
They said a 10 percent decline in the rate of tropical forest loss could generate annual carbon finance for developing nations of between 1.5 billion and 9.1 billion euros ($2.4 to $14.30 billion) assuming carbon prices of 5 to 30 euros a tonne.
Such curbs would represent about 300 million tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide emissions a year -- about the amount of heat-trapping gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, emitted by Turkey, or half the total of France.
The United Nations wants reduced emissions from deforestation to be part of a new long-term climate treaty beyond 2012 to help avert more droughts, heatwaves, outbreaks of disease and rising seas.
Ebeling told Reuters that any credits for avoided deforestation would have to be matched by tough restrictions elsewhere, for instance forcing coal-fired power plants or cement factories to pay for right to emit carbon dioxide.
BRAZIL
The study, published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, said there were big challenges in designing a fair system.
So far, most focus in the U.N. debate had been on rewarding countries with high deforestation rates -- such as Brazil and Ecuador -- for slowing the losses.
But nations such as Guyana or Suriname, which have maintained high forest cover, or others like Costa Rica and Chile, which have slowed or reversed deforestation, would gain little.
There were also problems such as judging the rate of deforestation or creating controls to ensure that protecting one forest does not lead to logging or clearance of another.
And some poor countries that could benefit -- such as Liberia or Myanmar -- may simply lack controls needed to regulate land use.
Still, Ebeling said he was optimistic a system could be worked out because of a widening political willingness to address deforestation as part of a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2013.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Editing by Mary Gabriel)
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=7bcff357-13a2-49e0-8102-2dbc447a54a0
Clear rules required for carbon accounting in post-Kyoto world
Gordon Hamilton
Vancouver Sun
Friday, March 14, 2008
In Indonesia, tropical forests are being levelled and replaced with palm oil plantations to produce eco-friendly biofuel.
And in North America, research shows a forest that grows for 80 years to biological maturity locks up less carbon than one harvested every 45 years and turned into building products.
It's like saving the planet by destroying the forest, a paradox that speakers at a Globe 2008 session said Thursday highlights the need for clear rules on accounting for carbon in the post-Kyoto world.
"If you get too far along in your carbon accounting, it gets counterproductive," warned Avrim Lazar, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada.
Lazar said a key question in climate change discussions should be: What are the values that govern forest management?
"If you just manage for carbon storage, you are missing the point. You should also manage for biodiversity, for wildlife values, for wilderness values.
"The best thing you could do for storing carbon would be to have tree farms right across the boreal [forest], turn them into newspapers and hide them in the basements in big stacks.
"You have huge sequestration, you've got continual gathering of CO2 out of the air in the tree farms. Fire is addressed and you have the world's best sequester.
"It's not what we want. We want to harvest the natural forest in a way that doesn't decrease the carbon storage but also respects biodiversity."
Data on the carbon-reduction benefits of fast harvest rotations were provided by Bruce Lippke, president of the Consortium for Research and Renewable Industrial Materials, which has conducted research into the total carbon footprint of wood products.
Chris Elliott, Pacific region vice-president for the World Wildlife Fund, said deforestation for bioenergy is a big concern.
"Bio-energy is very fashionable; there's a great peak of interest in it. But all that deforestation in Sumatra is actually for establishing oil palm plantations and some of that palm oil is now entering the global markets as use for biodiesel as a kind of green product. From a biodiversity and from a climate balance point of view that is extremely harmful."
Elliott said Asia Pulp & Paper, which recently purchased two pulp mills, a sawmill and timber tenure in B.C., is the main company involved in deforestation in Sumatra.
"We believe in holding global companies accountable to global standards. They can't duck and hide behind the fact that environmental regulations might be lower in Indonesia than in Canada. As they become more present in Canada, they will certainly find environmental groups challenging them on some of those issues."
The WWF has partnered with the Canadian forest industry to achieve a goal of harvesting, manufacturing and consuming forest products without adding carbon to the atmosphere.
Lazar laid out details of the plan at the Globe panel, saying it's an initiative "almost strangely bold," for his industry.
Both panelists said that the thorny issue of carbon accounting -- deciding what counts as an emission and what counts as storage and sequestration -- has yet to be settled.
Lazar said credibility is crucial to the initiative. Mimicking the acronyms that are commonplace at Globe, Lazar said FPAC has adopted the NBS rule -- no BS -- in its approach to carbon accounting.
The drive for carbon neutrality will examine carbon-in and carbon-out from the forest to the landfill.
Elliott said the collaboration is still in its early stages.
"We have some very strong experience here in Vancouver with one of the FPAC members, Catalyst Paper. We have worked on a similar project with them over the past five years," he said in an interview.
"They have been able to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent through a combination of using biofuels and increasing energy efficiency in their mills.
"But what we are are looking at here with FPAC is broader and more ambitious. We are looking at management in the forests, management in the mills and then the whole product life-cycle."
ghamilton@png.canwest.com
Gordon Hamilton
Vancouver Sun
Friday, March 14, 2008
In Indonesia, tropical forests are being levelled and replaced with palm oil plantations to produce eco-friendly biofuel.
And in North America, research shows a forest that grows for 80 years to biological maturity locks up less carbon than one harvested every 45 years and turned into building products.
It's like saving the planet by destroying the forest, a paradox that speakers at a Globe 2008 session said Thursday highlights the need for clear rules on accounting for carbon in the post-Kyoto world.
"If you get too far along in your carbon accounting, it gets counterproductive," warned Avrim Lazar, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada.
Lazar said a key question in climate change discussions should be: What are the values that govern forest management?
"If you just manage for carbon storage, you are missing the point. You should also manage for biodiversity, for wildlife values, for wilderness values.
"The best thing you could do for storing carbon would be to have tree farms right across the boreal [forest], turn them into newspapers and hide them in the basements in big stacks.
"You have huge sequestration, you've got continual gathering of CO2 out of the air in the tree farms. Fire is addressed and you have the world's best sequester.
"It's not what we want. We want to harvest the natural forest in a way that doesn't decrease the carbon storage but also respects biodiversity."
Data on the carbon-reduction benefits of fast harvest rotations were provided by Bruce Lippke, president of the Consortium for Research and Renewable Industrial Materials, which has conducted research into the total carbon footprint of wood products.
Chris Elliott, Pacific region vice-president for the World Wildlife Fund, said deforestation for bioenergy is a big concern.
"Bio-energy is very fashionable; there's a great peak of interest in it. But all that deforestation in Sumatra is actually for establishing oil palm plantations and some of that palm oil is now entering the global markets as use for biodiesel as a kind of green product. From a biodiversity and from a climate balance point of view that is extremely harmful."
Elliott said Asia Pulp & Paper, which recently purchased two pulp mills, a sawmill and timber tenure in B.C., is the main company involved in deforestation in Sumatra.
"We believe in holding global companies accountable to global standards. They can't duck and hide behind the fact that environmental regulations might be lower in Indonesia than in Canada. As they become more present in Canada, they will certainly find environmental groups challenging them on some of those issues."
The WWF has partnered with the Canadian forest industry to achieve a goal of harvesting, manufacturing and consuming forest products without adding carbon to the atmosphere.
Lazar laid out details of the plan at the Globe panel, saying it's an initiative "almost strangely bold," for his industry.
Both panelists said that the thorny issue of carbon accounting -- deciding what counts as an emission and what counts as storage and sequestration -- has yet to be settled.
Lazar said credibility is crucial to the initiative. Mimicking the acronyms that are commonplace at Globe, Lazar said FPAC has adopted the NBS rule -- no BS -- in its approach to carbon accounting.
The drive for carbon neutrality will examine carbon-in and carbon-out from the forest to the landfill.
Elliott said the collaboration is still in its early stages.
"We have some very strong experience here in Vancouver with one of the FPAC members, Catalyst Paper. We have worked on a similar project with them over the past five years," he said in an interview.
"They have been able to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent through a combination of using biofuels and increasing energy efficiency in their mills.
"But what we are are looking at here with FPAC is broader and more ambitious. We are looking at management in the forests, management in the mills and then the whole product life-cycle."
ghamilton@png.canwest.com
Markets can save forests
Editorial
Nature 452, 127-128 (13 March 2008) | doi:10.1038/452127b; Published online 12 March 2008
Markets can save forests
Top of page
Abstract
With the right infrastructure, the forces threatening to destroy the world's trees could be their salvation.
Trees are worth more dead than alive on the international market — a stark economic fact that has undermined countless programmes to protect rainforests over the years. It is a lesson that should not be forgotten as the international community explores ways to reduce global-warming emissions from deforestation. Conventional programmes involving incentives, laws and enforcement may prove useful, or even necessary — as highlighted by Brazil's approach to the issue (see page 134) — but to solve the problem completely, the international community will need to design a better market that recognizes the value of standing trees, forests and the less tangible services they provide. Integrating deforestation into international carbon markets, the most notable of which is the European emission-trading scheme, is a good place to start.
In this context, the European Commission's recent proposal to bar deforestation credits from the next phase of trading is a disappointment. The commission's fear is that cheap deforestation credits will suddenly soak up all of the money for reducing emissions (see Nature 452, 8–9; 2008). If ending deforestation quickly is indeed the cheapest way of reducing emissions, it is not clear why this should be a problem. But in truth, a great deal has to be accomplished before any market scheme will be viable.
In recent years, for example, scientists have greatly improved their models for estimating the most critical number for deforestation: the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere when a given plot of land is razed. This information can now be extracted fairly accurately from satellite images. But to do that consistently, on a global scale, rainforest nations will need to train people and develop a standing infrastructure for monitoring. This will not be cheap — and is another area in which conventional government-run programmes might be needed. The scientific community can play a direct role as well, by helping to get these programmes up and running.
Global warming has given the world the opportunity to build a more comprehensive and inclusive economic model.
Access to information will be critical. A few satellites can cover the entire globe, but there needs to be a system in place to ensure their images are readily available to everyone who needs them. Brazil has set an important precedent by making its Earth-observation data available, and the rest of the world should follow suit. This is more than a matter of common courtesy. It will foster the kinds of checks and balances and independent analysis that must necessarily underpin a viable carbon market.
And the international community needs to start thinking about the next step: how to encourage good forest stewardship. As it stands, nations such as India and Costa Rica are in the odd position of receiving little or no benefit from a market in carbon credits precisely because they have been able to control deforestation. And if illegal deforestation were to come to a halt, then those nations benefiting from the carbon market would see that source of income dry up, creating the same pressures that caused the problem in the first place.
True, dealing with standing forests will be tricky; no one wants to create a permanent welfare programme for the tropics. Nevertheless it is vital that the issue is tackled. This is essentially what the delegates agreed to do last December at the United Nations climate-change conference in Bali, and their decision was a wise one. As long as the international community is playing with the architecture of a carbon economy, it should explore new and creative ways to build in 'ecosystem services' such as biodiversity and coastal protection. Bear in mind that the alternative to putting an economic value on these intangibles is implicitly to set their value at zero.
One of the oddly positive effects of global warming is that it has given the world the opportunity to build a more comprehensive and inclusive economic model by forcing all of us to grapple with our impact on the natural environment. We are entering a phase in which new ideas can be developed, tested, refined and rejected as necessary. If we find just one that can beat the conventional economic measure of gross domestic product, and can quantify some of the basic services provided by rainforests and other natural ecosystems, it will more than pay for itself.
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