1. Valuing Carbon Stocking in Sustainable Forest Management.

Forests, both mature and growing, store and absorb carbon through their biomass. Through sustainable forest management practices, carbon is stored in wood products, and the harvested forest can absorb more carbon through regeneration and increased growth rates. On the other hand, harvesting of trees and wood conversion causes carbon emmission. The carbon flux through these processes lies on a sliding scale depending on the efficiency of timber harvesting, wood processing, and regenerative capacity of the forest. The optimum balance between net carbon storage and cost of conversion is yet to be quantified. This may be used to provide a new incentive for sustainable forest management practices.

2. Payment for Conservation.

It has for some time now been recognised that a standard methodology is needed for quantification and trade of carbon under a Conservation regime. Whereas trade in pollution credits is readily usable – i.e. it is easy to quantify and value carbon offset from a less polluting enterprise compared to a higher polluting enterprise, valuing offset by sinks has proven to be more complex.  The approach to date where sinks are concerned has been to value carbon uptake in aforestation and reforestation – scenarios that do not apply to standing forests. Another approach has been to try to value the carbon kept out of the atmosphere based on what alternative fate could within reason befall the forest. This approach is applied in arrangements with private individuals for forest protection but could also be applied to sustainable forest (timber and non-timber) harvesting. However, the problem with this approach when it comes to conserving standing forests is that it is based on multiple assumptions about land use patterns and makes the trade of the carbon a one off event, although payments may be staggered, and disproportionately favours the buyer rather than the resource owner. A more reasonable and equitable approach would be to value the amount of carbon that is removed from the atmosphere by a standing volume of trees for a period of time. Instead of entering the market to trade in pollution credits, conservation based sinks should enter the market as rental facilities. In this way a polluting enterprise can simply rent for a specified period a certain amount of carbon. The renter could use this to meet its requirements elsewhere.

3. Carbon Storage as an Adaptation to Climate Change.

Under an appropriate market system, sustainable forest management and conservation should not only be seen as a climate change mitigation measure but also as an important mechanism for adaptation in countries vulnerable to climate change. Through conservation and sustainable forest management practices, which are necessarily adaptive in nature, forest-dependent people would ensure that the forests remain important sinks of carbon. Such processes would strengthen the resilience of the forest ecosystem, improving its ability to provide critical environmental services in the case of increasing climatic pressures. For those low lying and small island developing states (SIDS) that have large tracts of forests, conservation and sustainable forest management address issues of security through provision of an active mechanism that combat climate vulnerability, whilst simultaneously helping in poverty alleviation.

This approach to climate change adaptation provides another means by which forest SIDS territories may benefit from existing financial mechanisms that exist within the Climate Change Convention. The Adaptation Fund, whilst it was expected to fund concrete adaptation measures, has produced little results to date.