The end of An Inconvenient Truth
finds former US vice president Al Gore stumping
for the Lorax (a Dr Seuss creation a "mossy,
bossy" man-like creature, who speaks for the
trees): "Plant trees, lots of trees," reads the
screen as the credits roll. Gore is fascinated
with the Earth's annual carbon dioxide cycle,
which he depicts as the planet breathing.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been trending
steadily upward for the past two centuries, but
each year there is also an annual rise and fall as
vegetation in the northern hemisphere grows and
dies with the seasons: inhale, exhale.
One
takeaway from the film is that CO2 has fluctuated
within a relatively stable range for at least the
last several hundred thousand years. Carbon
concentration correlates positively
with
average temperature; and human
activity is now pushing atmospheric carbon above
that stable range, risking unknown consequences
and temperature increases due to the greenhouse
effect.
So are trees the solution?
Partially. Deforestation produces about 20% of
global warming emissions and is the second major
source after fossil fuel consumption.
Reforestation is therefore a key factor in any
climate strategy.
Trees under
siege Years ago at the rain forest
room at the Baltimore Aquarium, the entrance to
the steamy jungle simulation showed a
deforestation doomsday clock ticked forward to
2050 as the depicted forest acreage receded to an
absurd fraction of its original coverage. "That
can't happen. People will change," I remember
thinking when I visited as a child. The year 2050
felt like distant future back then, but it's now
well within the range of official predictions and
policy solutions for global warming.
And
well it should be as trees are under siege
globally. Overall, the world lost 7.3 million
hectares of forest per year from 2000 to 2005.
Clashes with timber poachers in the Brazilian
Amazon often end in death or displacement for
indigenous residents. Nigeria lost 36% of its
total forest cover and 79% of its primary forests
between 1990 and 2005. Some species aren't even
safe in American backyards. An elderly couple in
Vermont recently awoke to find timber thieves had
stolen their valuable maples.
Deforestation could also be a precursor to
social collapse, as UCLA geography professor Jared
Diamond has theorized, pointing to vanished
cultures like the Anasazi of the southwest United
States and the Easter Islanders of the South
Pacific. While it is impossible to reduce the
disappearance of a culture to a single variable,
both societies were timber intensive - for
building pueblos and erecting large heads
respectively - and left their lands barren.
What was the last tree felled on Easter
Island worth? Riches or pennies: It didn't matter
because somebody needed it and was going to cut it
anyway. Societies and economies traditionally have
trouble calculating forest worth, but modern
attempts to assign value to forests and ecosystem
services are proving fruitful. One example is the
Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies and
labels sustainably harvested wood products that
are then sold at a premium.
Investors are
also getting into conservation. Mongabay.com
reported last month that UK-based Canopy Capital
purchased the rights to the ecosystem services
from a 371,000 hectare rain forest reserve in
Guyana. Beyond the sale of carbon offset credits,
the firm is wagering that living services like
"rainfall generation, climate regulation,
biodiversity maintenance, and water storage" will
have future value in international markets.
Another push for conservation value has
come from efforts to pay developing countries not
to deforest. Parties to the UN climate conference
in Bali last December agreed on the inclusion of
reducing emissions from deforestation and
degradation (REDD) in future agreements.
The World Bank is also working on REDD
payments for developing countries through its
Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). The
funding is divided into two streams: a readiness
mechanism to measure country forests and build
capacity for monitoring, and a carbon finance
mechanism that will pay countries for "verifiably
reducing emissions" relative to a baseline
scenario. More than US$150 million has been
allocated to the FCPF, including donations from
country governments like Norway and private groups
like the Nature Conservancy.
Most to
lose Millions of forest dwellers
around the world have the most to lose from
deforestation and the most to gain from
participation in REDD projects. They banded
together in Manaus, Brazil this month to present a
position on how indigenous communities should be
consulted and included when it comes to ecosystem
payments. Some fear that carbon finance could
accelerate indigenous dispossession when land
rights are unclear.
Forest
politics A dramatic example of how
politics affects forest policy is the contrast
between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Aerial
photos show a forested Dominican side of the
border, while the Haitian side is bare. It is
estimated that nearly all of Haiti's forests have
been felled, often for charcoal for cooking fires.
The Dominican Republic has worked on conservation
policy, whereas Haiti is a living microcosm of
what happens when social and material systems are
mismatched with the human will to survive.
Jules Walter, a student at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes he
has a partial solution for his native Haiti. His
research at the MIT Development Lab has led to
cleaner-burning charcoal briquettes made from
plant waste, such as corncobs and the byproducts
of sugar cane processing. The briquettes yield
less dangerous smoke - a common health threat from
indoor cooking fires in the developing world. They
would also relieve pressure on forests as a source
of energy. Walter established the for-profit
company Bagazo to market his charcoal, which is
cheaper than traditional forms.
The world
is also experimenting with fuel derived from
renewable living plants, as opposed to limited
deposits of fossilized ones, but so far the plants
have been poorly chosen, often conflicting with
food crops. As a result, the price of food has
risen for poor families that depend on palm oil
for cooking or corn flour for tortillas.
Stopping deforestation is only one step.
Sustainable livelihoods within forests are also
critical.
As biologist E O Wilson writes
in The Diversity of Life, rain forests can
generate long-term sustainable profits when left
intact, as opposed to the short-term revenue of
clear-cut timber or slash-and-burn agriculture
that often causes erosion and depleted fertility
within a farmer's lifetime. The secret lies in
what's harvested and how it's grown.
Analog forestry has emerged as one means
of sustainable reforestation and forest
agriculture. Analog forests are man-made forest
gardens that incorporate native plants and mimic
the complex mix of biodiversity normally found in
the ecosystem, including harvestable species such
as fruits and spices. Instead of an orchard or
farm on a cleared patch, it is a garden interwoven
with the jungle. Ideally the garden grows to a
state of climax vegetation - the peak equilibrium
of forest health that would exist without human
interference.
Analog forestry is used in
the Choco region of Colombia to rehabilitate
damaged lands and provide food for forest
residents. Working in partnership with the Green
Gold initiative's effort to certify sustainable
mining, artisanal small-scale miners have
reclaimed 47 hectares of degraded mining land.
They harvest dozens of species ranging from
aquacate to zapote.
What if a tree falls
in a forest and nobody's there to hear it? The
Japanese Zen koan is meant to quiet the
mind's chatter, but perhaps it can also be
interpreted as a thought experiment about the
future. What if one day, through abuse of the
environment, there really is nobody around and yet
the trees keep growing and falling? This is a
future we certainly wish to avoid.
More
than half of humanity now lives in cities, almost
ensuring that hundreds of millions of people will
live and die without ever setting foot in a real
forest. The full effects of this disconnect with
humanity's origins are yet to be understood. For
all the efficiency, convenience and culture that
cities deliver as a positive form of human
organization, they also imply wasteful consumer
lifestyles and a constant urban churn that has
replaced the primal calm of a lonely mountaintop.
Urban growth displaces forests, wetlands,
and arable land. While innovations such as urban
gardens and green roofs are a means of integrating
natural and man-made systems, there is no
substitute for the permanent loss of primary
forest.
Future behavior needs to be
sensitive to complex dynamics. Recent attempts to
protect African trees from being foraged by
herbivores disrupted the trees' natural symbiosis
with an insect, causing more overall damage than
the trees would have received from the usual
munching.
There is no silver shovel to dig
us out of environmental trouble. On the global
scale, geoengineering is the new buzz concept.
These interventions could benefit from cautious
steps: a light foot clad in a biodegradable
moccasin.
Evan O'Neil, who
graduated from Duquesne University with a BA in
philosophy, is a program associate at the Carnegie
Council for Ethics in International Affairs and
managing editor of Policy Innovations online
magazine.
(Published with permission
of the Global Policy
Innovations
program at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in
International Affairs.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
