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.

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)

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

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.

Carbon trade could jump 56 per cent

From Herald News Services

Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Global trade in carbon dioxide emissions could reach 3.8 billion tonnes this year, a 56 per cent increase from 2007, according to a report from Point Carbon, an Oslo-based research and publishing firm.

The report released Tuesday includes a survey of the carbon market in which more than 70 per cent of respondents predict a global climate agreement by 2012. That's the year the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The survey was conducted over the Internet from Jan. 18 to Feb. 6, according the report. Of the 3,700 respondents, 40 per cent said they trade carbon permits and six per cent represent financial institutions

Link : http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=0a83f5ad-fcbb-42f9-918d-17a61cd97571

Adapting to climate variability and change: a guidance manual for development planning

Adapting to climate variability and change: a guidance manual for development planning

Produced by: USAID Global Climate Change Program (2007)

It is important to consider the potential impact of climate change when planning and designing development projects. Understanding, planning for and adapting to changing climate enables individuals and societies to make the most of opportunities and reduce risk.

This guidance manual looks at how to understand climate change as it may impact on project cycles and incorporating a six-step approach for assessing vulnerability and implementing adaptation. These include:

• screen for vulnerability: a preliminary assessment of whether climate variability or change could compromise the integrity, effectiveness and longevity of a project
  
• identify adaptation options: working with stakeholders to identify alternative designs or management processes to better cope with climate variability
  
• conduct analysis: examine the consequences of climate variability and change as well as the effectiveness, costs and feasibility of adaptations that can reduce vulnerability to climate variability and change
  
• select a course of action: meet with stakeholders to review analysis results and determine if changes to current project design are needed
  
• implement adaptations: prepare an implementation plan to identify next steps
  
• evaluate adaptations: it may be difficult to evaluate effectiveness in a relatively short time period following implementation, however, an evaluation can be done to see if adaptations were properly put in place and whether there were any problems or excessive costs associated with them.

The manual also gives various concrete examples of USAID projects applying this in many different countries as well as helpful learning tools such as explanatory flow-charts, further resources and links.

Available online at: http://w ww. eldis. org/cf/rdr/?doc=35292

The implications of carbon financing for pro-poor community forestry

The implications of carbon financing for pro-poor community forestry

Authors: Luttrell,C. ; Schreckenberg,K. ; Pe,L.
Produced by: Overseas Development Institute, London (2008)

This paper explores the implications of new financing mechanisms, carbon markets and increased investment in forestry for community forestry. The main focus of the discussion is on 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' (REDD).

The authors discuss the debate over who has the right to 'own' carbon, and how this controls the levels at which decisions are made. They highlight the fact that, although it is not yet clear at what level REDD will operate, it probably will involve a degree of centralised control. This has implications for pro-poor outcomes including; how carbon baselines and targets will be devolved to producers and the role played by governments. The document points out that the way in which benefits are targeted is a concern for the forest dependent poor.

Key concluding points include:

• carbon financing offers the potential for new forms of financing for community forestry
• the design and process of funding mechanisms need attention to ensure that new forms of financing maintain pro-poor outcomes of community forestry
• clarification of the legal and ownership status of carbon is important to ensure security of contracts and accurate prediction of returns
• transaction costs of carbon forestry are likely to be high; therefore matching of benefits to the transaction costs and operational requirements is advisable.
  

Available online at: http://w ww. eldis. org/cf/rdr/?doc=35593

India urges rich to take lead in climate fight

Wed Dec 12, 2007 6:21am EST

By Sugita Katyal

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - India urged rich countries on Wednesday to take the lead in cutting greenhouse gases, saying it cannot accept binding targets in any U.N. deal on combating climate change because of its economic needs.

India, with more than a billion people, is the world's fourth largest emitter behind the United States, China and Russia and is projected to account for a rising share of global carbon emissions as it burns more fuel to try to end poverty.

Despite pressure from industrialized nations and environmental groups to curb emissions, India is not required under the Kyoto Protocol to curb emissions, said to be rising annually by 2-3 percent.

"It is up to the developed world to assist developing countries, including India. We are not ripe enough to make any binding commitments. We are a developing country," N.N. Meena, junior environment minister, said at U.N. climate talks in Bali.

The 190-nation climate change talks in Indonesia's resort island of Bali are aimed at agreeing to start two years of talks to agree a new treaty to succeed Kyoto and involve all nations in a fight against global warming from 2013.

Poor nations want rich countries to do more before they agree and negotiators are working hard on a formula to draw in the developing world, particularly India and China.

"We are concerned at the attempts to create a new framework, which may result in the dilution of specific and timebound commitments on emission reductions by developed countries. This should not be allowed to happen," India's science and technology minister, Kapil Sibal, said in Bali.

"Bali needs to send out strong messages. Without doubt the most important one should be that the negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol for quantified, time bound and substantial greenhouse gas reductions by developed countries post-2012 will be completed by 2009."

FACTBOX-Bali U.N. climate talks and goals

Thu Dec 13, 2007 8:04am EST

Dec 13 (Reuters) - A 190-nation U.N. climate meeting in Bali from Dec 3-14 is seeking to launch two years of formal negotiations meant to end with agreement on a broad new U.N. pact to fight global warming.

About 10,000 delegates on the Indonesian island are considering a draft document laying out a "roadmap" of guiding principles for the talks on a U.N. treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto sets caps on emissions of greenhouse gases for industrial 37 nations until 2012. The United States rejected the pact in 2001 and developing nations led by China and India have no targets. A new treaty would seek to involve all.

Following are details of a draft text on Thursday:

HOW AMBITIOUS?

The United States, the only rich outside the Kyoto Protocol which caps greenhouse gases, has opposed in Bali any target range of greenhouse gas emissions cuts. It has support from Japan and Canada but the European Union wants a range.

The new draft says "much deeper cuts in emissions" by rich nations will be needed. Trying to skirt the EU-U.S. dispute, it notes that Kyoto countries want all rich nations to be guided by cuts in greenhouse gases by 25-40 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels.

The new draft notes that the toughest category assessed by the U.N. Climate Panel requires global emissions of greenhouse gases to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, "well below half of 2000 levels by 2050."



RICH AND POOR

The draft calls on rich countries to consider "quantified national emission limitation and reduction commitments".

Meanwhile, developing countries should consider "measureable and reportable national mitigation actions." That is a weaker demand than in the original draft for poor nations to "limit the growth of, or reduce, emissions". Emissions-cutting measures in developing nations could include slowing deforestation.

POLICIES

Developing nations want clean technologies to help them curb greenhouse gas emissions, and they feel that rich countries have short-changed them on a commitment to provide such help under the 1992 Convention on Climate Change.

The new draft asks parties to consider "cooperation on research and development of new and innovative technology". It also calls for more finance and investment to support adaptation to climate change -- another key demand of developing nations.

LAUNCH OF NEW TALKS

The draft lays out three options:

1) Two years of informal talks that do not necessarily lead to a new treaty.

-- This option has had support from few countries such as Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.

2) Two separate sets of talks, ending with a global deal to be adopted at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in late 2009. One set would be new targets for 37 Kyoto industrial nations, another for outsiders such as the United States and developing nations.

-- Most countries support this option. China, however, wants to give Kyoto outsiders until 2010 to agree, saying that a new U.S. president will take office only in January 2009, and many countries want to know Washington's policies first.

3) An immediate merger of the Kyoto and the international talks to produce a deal in 2009.

-- Most countries that prefer this approach equally support option 2.

TIMETABLE

The first talks will be held no later than April 2008. That meeting would work out a detailed timetable.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Writing by Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle; Reuters messaging:

Opportunities for Avoided Deforestation with Sustainable Benefits”

ASB Report ((www.asb.cgiar.org).

Executive Summary

Trees and forests play important roles in global climate change mitigation. On the one hand, trees

growing in forests and on farms are one of the world’s greatest sinks of carbon. Afforestation in Europe

now offsets significant amounts of global emissions and there are many unexploited opportunities for

afforestation and reforestation in the developing world. On the other hand, tropical deforestation is one of

the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

estimate that in 2004, the forest sector was responsible for 17.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Global-level studies of the economics of climate change mitigation indicate that afforestation and avoided

deforestation are among the most attractive investments for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions (total

emissions less total sequestration). The ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins has conducted

biophysical, socioeconomic and institutional research on the tradeoffs associated with alternative land

uses in the humid tropics. Building on previous research at the ASB benchmark sites, this paper presents

spatially-explicit analyses of the tradeoffs between carbon and economic returns in three sites in

Indonesia, and one site in each of Peru and Cameroon. Located in the humid forest zones of Southeast

Asia, the Amazon basin, and Central Africa, these sites represent a range of the conditions that shape tree

and forest management across the humid tropics. Indonesia is particularly distinguished by having the

world’s highest levels of land-based emissions of greenhouse gases and largest CO2 emissions from

conversion of peat lands.

Results presented in this report indicate similarities and differences across the sites. The patterns of land

use transition over the last 10-20 years vary considerably, with some sites experiencing general trends of

carbon-emitting land use changes, while others experiencing a balance of carbon-emitting and carbon-sequestering

land use changes. In general, however, the carbon losses due to carbon-emitting forest

conversion vastly exceed the carbon gains due to carbon-sequestering land use changes. This is

exemplified by the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan. Although it has experienced more

sequestering land use changes than emitting land use changes, the province has on net lost huge

amounts of carbon overall since 1990. . This is because the carbon-emitting land use changes have

resulted in average losses of 230 tonnes per hectare per in the year that they occur, while shifts from

lower to higher carbon-sequestering land uses have resulted in just 4 tonnes of sequestration per hectare

per year.

Further results from across the 3 provinces of Indonesia indicate that there is, even without specific

support programs, substantial activity to restore carbon to landscapes that have been previously

degraded. In East Kalimantan, the bulk of the carbon-sequestering land use changes are natural regrowth

from cleared land, while in Jambi the transition to carbon-sequestering land uses mostly represent

transitions from cropland to rubber agroforestry systems. Win-win solutions are possible: transitions from

cropland to rubber agroforestry in Jambi and from coffee to complex damar agroforestry in Lampung

increase returns to farmers and time-averaged carbon stocks. In Cameroon, shifts from crop-fallow

systems agriculture into shaded cocoa systems can also be such a win-win solution.

The analysis of the economic returns associated with the land use transitions (measured in terms of

discounted net present value) shows that there is clear economic rationale for almost all of the land use

transitions occurring in the 5 sites. That is, almost every land use transition has been economically

rational from the perspective of private land users responding to: market incentives to harvest and sell

timber; market opportunities for new cash crops; the lack of incentives they have to maintain the value of

standing carbon, and high interest rates in local financial markets.

Expressed in terms of tonnes of emissions of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq), however, the economic

gains associated with deforestation are very low. In the three provinces of Indonesia included in the study,

between 6 and 20% of the area where emissions increased have generated returns less than 1$ per tonne

of CO2eq and between 64 and 92% of the emission generating changes have resulted in returns less than

5$ per tonne of CO2eq. In the benchmark site in Ucayali Province in Peru, over 90% of emissions from

land use change have generated returns less than 5$ per tonne of CO2eq. If carbon stock of standing

forests were valued and sellable during 20 years, a large percentage of greenhouse emissions from

deforestation in the Indonesia and Peru sites might have been avoided. Current market and incentive

conditions in the humid tropics continue to inadequately provide incentives for cost-effective reduction of

CO2 emissions.

The global analysis also reveals heterogeneity in carbon stocks in humid tropical forests. Results from the

Indonesian province of Jambi show that peat forests, as well as other peat lands, should be given special

attention in negotiations and programmes for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest

degradation. The customary slash-and-burn system known as “sonor” is particularly damaging to the

atmosphere, releasing large amounts of carbon from the rich peat soils, while providing very little return in

terms of income to the local farming populations. The return per tonne of CO2 emitted is as low as

US$0.10-0.20 in those landscapes.

Policy makers concerned about carbon emissions can and should harvest some low hanging fruits by

devising early and effective mechanisms for compensating land users for the carbon storage value of

forests and trees. Policy makers should pay greater attention to below-ground carbon, particularly the

need to conserve the peat lands of Indonesia that store large amounts of carbon. Investments in these

high carbon payoff areas can clearly be a good deal for investors and for the planet. To be effective,

sustainable and fair, the deals will also have to make good sense for the tens of millions of farmers and

other rural residents whose actions together drive land use change in the tropical forest margins.

Key Messages:

This report contains the following key messages for international, national and local efforts to mitigate

climate change.

(1) There are cost-effective opportunities for large reductions in CO2 emissions from avoided deforestation

in the humid tropics, provided that appropriate institutions and incentive systems are created. Every year

of delayed action means a year more of large emissions that could have been avoided at relatively little

cost to the world economy. Governments and other stakeholders should take positive pragmatic steps at

the same time as they negotiate how to incorporate REDD into new long-term agreements.

(2) Urgent attention should be given to reducing emissions from the peatlands of Southeast Asia. This

includes stopping conversion of peat forests and modifying farming practices on previously-converted

peatlands, mostly by reducing the depth of drainage. Current negotiations about Reduced Emissions from

Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) should cover not just forested peat lands, but all peat

lands.

(3) In the absence of incentives for landowners to maintain forest resources, market conditions generally

favour conversion of forests over conservation. However, accounting for lost carbon values, this study

shows huge economic losses associated with land use change in all of the study sites. Accounting for the

value of other environmental services (such as biodiversity conservation), other climate benefits of forests,

and the economic loss due to climate change, would undoubtedly show even greater losses. To be

effective in the long-term, REDD mechanisms must provide land users with financial incentives that

outweigh the returns from conversion to other land uses. Our study shows this could be done costeffectively.

In the absence of carbon markets for avoided deforestation, emission reduction in Europe may

cost 100 times greater per unit than the financial value that is generated by emissions in the tropical forest

margins

(4) We have observed a considerable amount of carbon-sequestering land use changes that have also

increased net returns to farmers. This implies that incentives for re/afforestation may foster further land

use changes that increase income and sequester carbon. This study shows that establishing multi-strata

agroforestry systems on degraded lands– where farmers integrate a range of trees into their farming

systems -- is such an opportunity. Elsewhere, some community forestry systems have been shown to

represent a similar opportunity.

(5) Besides providing appropriate monetary or in-kind compensation for avoided land-use change, REDD

schemes should address both the need for alternative sources of livelihood for the affected populations,

well as the need to produce alternative sources of wood products for local uses. Again, both agroforestry

systems and community forestry can produce such win-win solutions.

(6) Given the importance of international market conditions in shaping land use transitions in the humid

tropics, it is highly likely that patterns of consumption, trade and environmental regulation in the countries

that consume the products of tropical forest landscapes will spill over into incentives for land use change

in developing countries. International organizations, national governments and industry groups should be

aware of these positive spillovers and take action to reduce negative impacts. Green premiums for rubber,

cocoa and coffee produced from carbon-rich systems need further encouragement and support.