Dear Editor,
The Stabroek News (SN) editorial (Nov 22, 07), “Preparing for the Bali conference on climate change”, discussed some of the challenges facing the planet with regard to this major issue, and also supported the notion of incentives for the stewardship of forests as an effective approach to help in the battle against climate change. Similar views have consistently been expressed in the newspapers and at conferences as the position of negotiation for Guyana. However, while the stewardship of forests is obviously beneficial as an environmental strategy, stewardship of mature or old forests does not contribute significantly to the objective of the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol is geared towards the reduction and stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions, and mature forests, though they store much carbon, do not reduce atmospheric carbon. Therefore, they are a weak position for negotiation in climate change debates-but they can be a strong point for us in the marketplace and indirectly be linked, not only to climate change, but to other environmental matters.
Managing forest carbon to mitigate climate change is a complex business, that requires understanding the entire carbon cycle over long time periods. There are three specific forest-based strategies often proposed for mitigating climate change. These are managing for fast-growing young forests, increasing carbon stored in wood products, and increasing use of woody biomass fuels. These strategies illustrate some of the underlying complexities in establishing forest-based solutions as effective means for climate change mitigation. In the interest of column space, expanding of these three strategies is not practical. However, the first two strategies are based on directly increasing the carbon sequestration of managed forests, while the latter is focused on replacing fossil fuel with woody biomass based on the concept of carbon neutrality-carbon sequestered equals carbon released when burned. Hence, this strategy seeks eligibility for offset credits if woody biomass were to replace fossil fuel, provided that the forests are not converted, say to residential or industrial development. Each strategy is geared towards reducing atmospheric carbon, but is laced with difficult issues such as tracking the fate of harvested wood products, which store carbon, accounting for all carbon flows in young and mature forests, and energy conversion losses and emissions from harvest and transport, among others. Again, the only discussion that involves mature forests requires that they be cut down and replaced by younger, faster growing trees in a managed way. But this sort of thinking, if it goes unchecked, can encourage deforestation of pristine areas which provide innumerable ecosystem functions-hence introducing additional complexities. Nonetheless, the real question is, “How do these strategies apply to Guyana?” If they do, “How do we position ourselves to maximize any benefits?” And if they don’t, “What new strategies can we propose to both help the climate change situation and reap national benefits?” The latter may be very difficult, but we need to identify stronger positions for negotiation. However, rainforests constitute the majority of Guyana’s nearly 165,000 square kilometres of natural vegetative cover. Conserving the mature stock of trees, which is probably the majority, has the least benefit for the reduction of greenhouse gases and hence could be expected to receive little to no monetary incentives in this regard. The logic is simple-the net biomass growth rate slows down in mature forests and they remove minimal carbon from the atmosphere. It is young and rapidly growing trees, which store much more carbon in the process of growth, and therefore reduce the current level of atmospheric carbon. We have to accept that our mature trees are only good for other ecosystem functions and durable timber production.
Therefore, in the climate change context, it becomes apparent that the three forest-based solutions would have little application to Guyana because we have most of our forests intact as mature trees and slow rates of deforestation. Take the United States for example; forest acres and average biomass per forest acre are currently increasing, as US forests recover from past clearing or heavy harvest. Their forest carbon stores are growing larger over time. Countries are allowed to use forest carbon stores to meet some of their emission targets under Kyoto, but with some restrictions. However, it would seem perverse (to use the words of the President), that countries that cleared their forests would receive “incentives” for re-growing them (if this was indeed the case), when it was the clearing that contributed to climate change in the first place. Just as perverse though, is expecting to receive monetary incentives for not clearing trees, which do not reduce the severity of the climate change situation-however, clearing them does make the situation worse. I don’t think we can hold the world at ransom asking them to pay us or else we will cut the tress and make climate change worse. I guess it’s unfortunate we didn’t clear first so that we could now attract investors to grow them back-of course I’m being facetious.
Anyway, awarding monetary incentives for forest stewardship, as proposed by the President and other groups, is the same as paying countries with oil reserves to leave them in the ground; and what of the current oil producing countries? Will they have to halt production of oil because oil has been implicated as a culprit in greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change? The argument is synonymous with that made in the SN editorial; carbon is stored in oil reserves and will remain there unless humans utilize oil as a source of energy. In this sense, oil production is the same as unchecked deforestation-it releases excessive carbon, which remains in the atmosphere. The only way to reduce oil production is to shift to cleaner and cheaper energy sources and implement policies that together make oil less competitive in the market place.
Therefore, one of the ways Guyana can benefit from having low deforestation rates and extensive forests is to work towards making uncontrolled deforestation in other parts of the world appear to be a negative stigma in trade. For example, we need to market our logs (with the assistance of NGOs) as coming from a protected zone of the world where the trees are managed to maintain their ecosystem functions inclusive of carbon storage, but still provide material for construction. In the same way, consumers shy away from products associated with child labour and testing on animals, we must encourage them to purchase items associated with effective forest management and conservation. Consumers must know that if they buy wood from countries that are clearing their forest wildly, they are in essence contributing to climate change.
Brazil, for example, has an extremely high rate of deforestation and much of the logging is considered illegal according to reports by reputable NGOs. Yet, Brazil is rated among the top 10 timber producing countries in world-preceded only by the USA, China, and India. Those three names pop up at every climate change debate. However, four of the UK’s bigger sources of timber include Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cameroon. Brazil has lost 53 million hectares of forests due to logging alone. Malaysia and Indonesia have lost 72% and 50% of their forest cover respectively, while half of Cameroon’s forests are gone. With these figures, Guyana should gain a competitive advantage for producing timber and conserving forest.
Finally, to fully exploit the next rounds of discussion on forest-based measures, we need to work arduously to ensure that we implement and enforce replanting strategies, which can then be used as carbon credits. The aim is to tag our products for specific uses such as timber piles or industrial or residential construction. If we can work with importers to ensure that logs tagged for piles, say in harbours, remain
there for 50+ years, then we can essentially account for the fate of our products. We will become an essential part of the solution for climate change, rather than sitting back demanding money for standing forests.
Yours faithfully,
Kofi Dalrymple
