Prevent or preventing from depleting forests

My paper title is “Prevent or preventing from depleting forests” and the following will be the sources you have to use accordingly.

1. Green grab, red light by Fred Pearce
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530100.200-to-save-the-rainforest-let-the-locals-take-control.html#.VSs9Ak90wdV
2. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) By AUTUMN SPANNE
3. Is Burning of Amazon all smoke? (Cover Story) By Howard LaFranchi
4. A useful climate-change policy tool, or a license to deny forest
dwellers’ rights?
Authors: Wells, Zachary
Brands, Kelly Moore
5. The World Must Move Faster to Conserve Tropical Rainforests
Biodiversity, 2013
2# Title: Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation
(REDD).
Authors: SPANNE, AUTUMN
Source: NACLA Report on the Americas. Fall2012, Vol. 45 Issue 3, p67-67.
1/2p.
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: *DEFORESTATION — Control
*INTERNATIONAL cooperation
*CARBON offsetting
*CARBON credits
*EMISSIONS trading
*GREENHOUSE gas mitigation
Geographic Terms: PAPUA New Guinea
Company/Entity: UNITED Nations
NAICS/Industry Codes: 919110 International and other extra-territorial
public administration
928120 International Affairs
Abstract: The article discusses a model for curbing deforestation
proposed by the United Nations based on proposals from the Papua New
Guinea-led Coalition for Rainforest Nations. Under the model, polluters
could purchase carbon credits generated by governments, companies, and
communities to offset their emissions. Opponents of the model claim that
measuring the amount of carbon stored in forests is complex and prone to
errors.

Full Text Word Count: 423
ISSN: 1071-4839
Deforestation accounts for about a fifth of all global carbon emissions,
second only to the burning of fossil fuels, according to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).1 But ever since
the Kyoto Protocol was drafted in 1997, countries have been divided over
how to incorporate forest protection into global emission-reduction
plans.
At the UNFCCC meeting in Montreal in 2005, the Coalition for Rainforest
Nations, a group of nine countries led by Papua New Guinea, proposed
that there be incentives for countries to control emissions by reducing
deforestation. Their proposal evolved into REDD: Reducing Emissions From
Deforestation and Forest Degradation, the United Nations’ model for
curbing deforestation. Under REDD, polluters could offset their
emissions by purchasing carbon credits generated by governments,
companies, and communities like Cocomasur that protect forests.
But as countries began hammering out a post-Kyoto climate plan in
subsequent UNFCCC meetings, the chorus of REDD critics grew,
particularly with regard to carbon trading. Opponents say measuring the
amount of carbon stored in forests is complex and prone to errors, and
that protecting one part of a forest may have the unintended consequence
of shifting deforestation to adjacent, unprotected areas. Critics point
out that offsets could allow companies to continue polluting with no net
reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Indigenous peoples and other
communities that depend on forests for their survival are also concerned
that REDD may not provide sufficient safeguards to prevent land grabs.
In countries where land tenure and rights to forest carbon are not well
defined, they fear the financial incentives of REDD could lead to
displacement and other abuses.
For now, a formal UN framework for REDD is on hold but likely to be
developed in the coming years. Delays in the UN process have not,
however, prevented the emergence of hundreds of REDD pilot projects
around the world, many in developing countries with funds provided by
individual countries, the World Bank, private donors, and other sources.
Nations with weak governance and limited resources often struggle to
uphold the rights of forest peoples. But certification programs through
groups such as the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance and
Verified Carbon Standard are encouraging pilot projects that adhere to
higher environmental standards and community protections, creating a
blueprint for future models that aim to be more equitable and inclusive.
Footnote
1. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Fact Sheet:
The Need for Mitigation,” November 2009, available at unfccc.int.
By AUTUMN SPANNE
3#Title: Is burning of Amazon all smoke? (cover story)
Authors: LaFranchi, Howard
Source: Christian Science Monitor. 11/18/97, Vol. 89 Issue 247, p1. 2
Color Photographs.
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: *DEFORESTATION
*FOREST fires
Geographic Terms: BRAZIL
Abstract: Focuses on the debate in Brazil over deforestation
through forest fires in 1997. How Brazil ranks in the world for
deforestation; Claims from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection
agency, that 94 percent of the forest fires in Brazil are on already
cleared land; The link between the number of forest fires and the amount
of deforestation, according to the World Wildlife Fund; How
deforestation is increasing in late 1997. INSET: Brazil tries out role
of environmental referee to world..
Full Text Word Count: 1512
ISSN: 0882-7729
Dateline: BRASILIA
While the world watched a smoky haze from jungle fires engulf Southeast
Asia recently, another large tropical forest also saw an increase in
fires – the Amazon.
Airports have been repeatedly closed, drivers complain about low
visibility, and more people report breathing problems as a portion of
the world’s largest rain forest has been torched for commerce and
subsistence farming.
An area larger than Connecticut is being burned each year, and Brazil
now ranks No. 1 in deforestation, according to the Washington-based
World Wildlife Fund. Brazil’s National Space Research Institute
estimates fires have jumped more than a quarter during May to October
compared with last year’s burning season.
But that information has touched off a raging debate about whether the
surge in burnings actually means accelerated destruction of the Amazon.
“We’re finding that 94 percent of these burnings are repeat clearings of
already deforested areas, while only 6 percent are in new areas,” says
Eduardo Martins, president of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection
agency.
“It’s just not true that an increase in the number of burnings means
increased deforestation,” Mr. Martins adds.
But environmentalists and some state environmental officials counter
that where there’s smoke there’s deforestation – more, at least, than
government officials, sensitive about the international impact of Amazon
deforestation, are willing to admit.
“It’s true there’s no one-to-one link [of burned to deforested area],”
says Garo Batmanian, executive director of WWF in Brasilia. “But
historically speaking, we know there has always been an increase in
deforestation when the number of fires has increased.”
Increase in deforestation?
Brazil’s Institute for Environmental Research in the Amazon (IPAM),
associated with the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts,
estimates that about 70 percent of the fires this year occurred on
already deforested lands. But it also notes that the last time the
Amazon experienced a sudden upswing in burnings in 1988, the
deforestation rate also increased.
The WWF miffed Brazilian officials recently when it issued the report
finding that, at 15,000 square kilometers a year (5,776 square miles,
based on 1994 figures), Brazil is No. 1 in the world in deforestation.
IBAMA’s Martins responds with a different study – listing countries by
deforested land compared to remaining forest – that places Brazil at No.
68.
“I don’t really care about rankings, because statistics can always be
made to say what you want them to,” says Mr. Batmanian. “What I do know
is that 15,000 square kilometers is a large area no matter where it is.”
The controversy about burning and deforestation is abetted by Brazil’s
tardiness in issuing annual deforestation figures. The latest figures,
covering 1994, showed a 34 percent increase in deforestation after
several years of a much-trumpeted decline.
Brazil’s National Space Research Institute in Sao Jose dos Campos,
responsible for compiling the figures, has said the 1995 and 1996
figures will be released the first week of December. But some observers
suspect that will only happen if the news is good. With Brazilian
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso planning a trip to rain
forest-sensitive Europe in December, they believe any results showing a
continuing increase in deforestation would be held until after the
visit.
Martins says all indications suggest to him the new figures will show a
“stabilization” of deforestation.
The deforestation debate raises questions about why the fires are
increasing, and what, if anything, can be done about it. Some officials
blame government policy, which they say is “contradictory” when it comes
to the country’s rain forests.
“You have environmental policy trying to do one thing with the forests,
but an agricultural policy that has a very different effect,” says
Evandro Orfano Figueiredo, compliance director of IMAC, the
environmental agency of Acre State.
Last year, Mr. Cardoso decreed new regulations designed to increase from
50 to 80 percent the part of each land parcel that must be left
forested.
Government dilemma
But at the same time, the government has been resettling small farmers
to forested states like Acre, Mr. Orfano says, as one response to the
explosive landless people’s movement.
The Sem Terra, or landless movement, is, if anything, a more sensitive
issue within Brazil than deforestation, making it difficult for
officials to address the policy contradictions Orfano cites. “It is
politically incorrect to attack Sem Terra in any way, but it is a
serious problem,” Martins says.
The government is trying to reduce resettlements to forested areas, he
says, but that does not stop Sem Terra followers from “invading” and
squatting on both public and private forested lands. The policy of
reserving 80 percent of each land parcel means that vast sections of
forest are unprotected and susceptible to squatting, Martins says. “And
the quickest source of income for land invaders arriving with nothing is
the timber on the land they’ve invaded,” he adds.
Drying out the rain forest
Not only are the traditional “slash and burn” agricultural methods
causing the Amazon fires, but forest researchers say an increase in
selective logging is also making the rain forest more susceptible to
fire. Virgin rain forest is almost impossible to set afire because of
its high humidity and cooler “microclimate,” botanists say. But once the
forest is thinned out, it is opened to the sun, and humidity falls.
IBAMA’s Martins blames the Amazon region’s record-low humidity this year
on El Nino, the periodic warming of ocean waters off South America’s
Pacific coast that is wreaking havoc on climate patterns. But WWF’s
Batmanian says “pinning this on El Nino is stretching the truth.”
One trend augers poorly for the future, especially if the Amazon remains
dry: In some areas, according to findings in an IPAM study, the area
burned in “accidental” fires or set fires that raced out of control for
the first time is surpassing the area intentionally charred.
PHOTOS (COLOR): Where There’s Smoke, Is There More Deforestation? After
years of decline, burning of the amazon is on the rise in states like
Acre and Amazonas. But Brazil says more fires don’t equal more
destruction of the world’s largest rain forest, because most are in
areas that have already been cleared. Many environmentalists disagree.
By Howard LaFranchi
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BRAZIL TRIES OUT ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REFEREE TO WORLD
Dateline: BRASILIA
With an international convention on climate change just around the
corner, Brazil is looking to polish its environmental image by proposing
a compromise position to save the talks.
Next month, negotiators are set to meet in Kyoto, Japan, with the goal
of setting limits on so-called “greenhouse gases” – primarily carbon
dioxide emissions. According to many scientists, the gases threaten to
raise global temperatures with dire consequences for human life.
But with only a few weeks left before negotiations, prospects for an
accord look remote. The United States and Japan argue that tougher
emission restrictions would depress employment and economic growth,
while the European Union is pushing for steeper emissions cuts.
Enter Brazil.
“The Americans are one extreme, the Europeans are the other extreme, and
seeing fully the importance of some success in these negotiations, we
are trying to come up with something else,” says Antonio Dayrell de
Lima, director general of the section of the Foreign Ministry involved
in the climate talks.
The Brazilian idea is to divide the discomfort of progressive cuts among
countries – primarily developed countries, which have historically been
the biggest polluters and beneficiaries of high energy use. Each country
would then have a “budget” of allowed emissions. An “overspending”
country could “buy” additional greenhouse gas emission credits from an
under-budget country by paying into a clean development fund that would
help developing countries “grow clean.”
As a way to lure developing countries like China or India, which are
fast-rising greenhouse gas contributors, to sign on to the international
accord, the new fund would only be open to convention signers.
WHY Brazil’s keen interest? With 8,000 miles of coastline and among the
greatest biodiversity troves on Earth, Brazil would be especially
affected by the rise in sea levels and other climatic changes that could
result from a failure to act now, Brazilian officials say.
But privately, officials are also concerned that an inability of
developed countries to come to some agreement could result in a
“displacement” of the negotiations from the central issue – the burning
of fossil fuels – to other topics such as tropical forest burning and
deforestation.
Brazil is worried that the talks will shift to a focus on preservation
of the world’s carbon dioxide absorbers, or “sinks,” including the
Amazon. Noting that developing countries are suspicious of any accord
that would leave developed countries off the hook at their expense, Mr.
Dayrell de Lima says countries like Brazil don’t want an agreement in
which developed countries “promise a few dollars to keep [the rain
forests] as a [carbon dioxide] trash bin while they grow.”
Given the suspicions and intransigencies reigning on all sides, Dayrell
de Lima raises Brazil’s 60-page compromise proposal and says, “We are
trying to unblock the situation.”
By Howard LaFranchi
© 1997 The Christian Science Monitor (www.CSMonitor.com). Limited
electronic copying and printing is permitted under this license
agreement. Copies are for personal use only. For re-use and publication
permissions, please contact copyright@csps.com.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
4# Title: A useful climate-change policy tool, or a license to deny forest
dwellers’ rights?
Authors: Wells, Zachary
Brands, Kelly Moore
Source: World Watch. Nov/Dec2009, Vol. 22 Issue 6, p29-29. 1p. 1 Color
Photograph.
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: *CLIMATIC changes — International cooperation
*ENVIRONMENTAL law
*DEFORESTATION
*CLIMATOLOGY
Geographic Terms: COPENHAGEN (Denmark)
DENMARK
NAICS/Industry Codes: 924110 Administration of Air and Water Resource
and Solid Waste Management Programs
Abstract: The article focuses on a Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), a proposal which will be a
centerpiece of the December 2009 international meetings on climate
change in Copenhagen, Denmark. The proposal is meant to help poor
countries reduce deforestation by enabling aid organizations,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), corporations, and governments to
buy carbon credits generated from activities that keep forests standing.
Full Text Word Count: 756
ISSN: 0896-0615
Section:
Seeing REDD
Deforestation causes about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas
emissions, but tackling the problem has proved as difficult as reducing
fossil fuel-based emissions. The most promising current approach is a
proposal called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD), which will be a centerpiece of the December 2009
international meetings on climate change in Copenhagen. REDD is meant to
help poor countries reduce deforestation by enabling aid organizations,
NGOs, corporations, and governments to buy carbon credits generated from
activities that keep forests standing. The buyers could then apply the
credits toward their own quotas or trade them in carbon markets.
REDD is a critical policy tool because slowing deforestation can
simultaneously help to put the brakes on catastrophic climate change,
slow species loss by protecting habitat, and promote sustainable
development. And while the technical challenges are immense, some
experts believe that REDD may be the one coalition-building facet of a
hotly debated post-Kyoto climate agreement.
But some key affected parties have serious doubts. Forests provide homes
and livelihoods for millions of the world’s poorest people. Many
traditional forest dwellers and indigenous groups do not own the forests
they live in and have voiced substantial opposition to REDD. In 2008,
indigenous leaders, railed against their own representative body, the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, for what they saw
as a failure to represent them in the climate change debate. The
Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change last . April
produced a declaration that REDD must “secure the recognition and
implementation of the human rights of Indigenous Peoples, including
security of land tenure, ownership, recognition of land title according
to traditional ways, uses, and customary laws, and the multiple benefits
of forests for climate, ecosystems, and Peoples before taking any
action.”
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Rights and Resources Initiative,
80 percent of forests in the world’s 30 most forested countries are
state-owned. While most of the developing world’s forests are owned by
governments, the people living in far-flung forests and dense jungles
are the de facto managers because governments, especially in Africa,
cannot control what happens in their vast hinterlands. Legally, these
forest dwellers are squatters.
Yet forest ownership is going largely unnoticed by REDD’s principal
negotiators. If REDD makes forests more valuable, some locals will
benefit from having strong partners in conservation groups and dedicated
governments, but a great many others may be overrun in the scramble to
secure REDD benefits. From a government perspective it may make more
sense to further centralize forests and make decisions about who gets
what from the national capital. If REDD dollars accumulate nationally
under existing tenure regimes, locals will have to depend on the
benevolence of their governments to keep their forest homes and to
realize any profit from leaving the trees standing. The responsibility
to ensure that the rights of traditional forest dwellers are respected
then falls to the donor countries and organizations that are behind
REDD. The best way to do this would be by making REDD participation
conditional on a thorough examination of existing tenure legislation and
a rewriting of unjust laws. Yet such a polarizing stance could leave the
Copenhagen negotiations in a stalemate.

The second-best option might be to work for traditional rights
bilaterally, as donors partner with REDD governments. Norway, for
instance, has made a US$12 million commitment to Tanzania’s REDD
activities, and could hinge its support on specific land tenure goals
while assisting Tanzania in carrying them out. This is also a way to
guarantee the best return on an important investment, because many
developing country governments will never be able to control what
happens in their ‘ remote forests without local support. Making
partnerships conditional on activities like comprehensive mapping of
forest ownership, forest uses, and even the locations of forest dwelling
groups can help lay the groundwork for drafting empowering land
legislation. Real, legal tenure may be the cornerstone of forest
conservation and what dictates if REDD will function or fail.

PHOTO (COLOR): The Tulepan Indians of Pico Bonito National Park,
Honduras, have a forest management plan that allows them to sustainably
harvest timber inside the park.

~~~~~~~~By Zachary Wells and Kelly Moore Brands
Zachary Wells is practicing conservationists and Masters graduates of
the Monterey Institute of International Studies program in international
environmental policy.
Kelly Moore Brands is practicing conservationists and Masters graduates
of the Monterey Institute of International Studies program in
international environmental policy.