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Deforestation is estimated to contribute as much as 20% to global carbon emissions. Much of this occurs in developing countries, where people make short term economic decisions, rather than securing their long term future through conservation or sustainable forest management. Such decisions have significant global impacts as the aggregated deforestation in several regions has global consequences for the capacity of the earth to store carbon.
The global challenge of reducing carbon emissions from forests will not be addressed through prescriptive global restrictions on how forests should be used – restrictions that have complex local economic implications and have to date not been very successful in slowing the rate of deforestation. Rather, the global challenge must be addressed through promotion of local solutions that have global results. Countries must find relevant and real economic opportunities for poverty alleviation before they can respond positively to the global challenge of reducing carbon emissions. These economic incentives for conserving and applying sustainable management techniques need to be founded in some robust carbon trading scheme within or without the Kyoto Protocol. Failure to do so at this stage would make it unlikely that forests could be mainstreamed into the equation that secures the future of the human population, given the continued unchecked rate of deforestation and the time to expiration of the current Kyoto Protocol regime.
Forests represent a national asset whose carbon stock represent a global value that should be valued accordingly. The present reality is that the global environmental services provided by forests are being managed at a local and national level, with only small levels of compensation. Even when available, donor and private funds provide little direct financial returns to local forest people. The result is a disconnect between providing the global service and local livelihoods and wellbeing.
Alternatively, if considered within a market scheme, the payments from beneficiaries of this carbon stock are sparse and do not match the long term global value of these services. Internationally, forest management, poverty alleviation and climate change are not adequately treated in an integrated way.
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