The Associated Press
Saturday, December 15, 2007

BALI, Indonesia: Delegates at a U.N. climate conference agreed Saturday to include forest conservation in any future discussions about a new global warming pact, paving the way for billions of dollars (euros) in new spending to attack illegal logging.

With deforestation making up 20 percent of global emissions, world governments are desperate to find a solution to a problem that has been fueled by rising demand for timber and palm oil, widespread corruption and endemic poverty.

The program, Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Degradation, or REDD, aims to pay mostly developing tropical countries enough money to keep their trees in the ground — and thus continue to absorb carbon — rather than allowing them to be chopped down for a profit.

The agreement will be part of negotiations for a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 and is “a good balance between different countries views,” said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

“It is one of the substantial achievements of this conference.”

Saving tropical rain forests, especially in the Amazon, Indonesia and Congo basin in Africa, has been marked for decades by a series of failures.

Efforts to include protection schemes in the Kyoto agreement were first rejected over concern that credit for saving forests would take pressure off the West to reduce emissions, but also because some nations were unconvinced it would be possible to verify reforestation efforts.

Western governments, instead, rolled out programs aimed at getting villagers in Africa or Southeast Asia to shift to other businesses or ensure logs being exported from developing countries came from sustainable sources.

The programs failed to slow the pace of illegal logging, resulting in about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forest each year or an area twice the size of Panama, according to the World Bank. Brazil and Indonesia — where 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation — are the worst effected due to rampant illegal logging and the growing demand for biofuels and other commodities like soybeans.

But with as much as US$23 billion (€15.6 billion) — the amount of money that could be raised through REDD — conservationist and governments from tropical countries say there is renewed hope that the trend can be reversed.

The program is being hailed not only as a climate change solution, but also as a way of helping protect biodiversity and providing a cheap way to shield communities from the worsening floods and landslides that are so common in much of Southeast Asia.

“This is an important agreement because we need to have emissions included in the Bali roadmap,” said Greenpeace Brasil’s Paulo Adario.

Already, word of the deal has led to several related projects to protect forests. On Wednesday, eight Western governments were announcing plans to donate US$165 million (€114 million) to the World Bank’s newly created Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Norway, which contributed to the fund, also announced it was spending US$542,152 (€375,855) annually for the next three years to reduce deforestation projects in developing countries over three years.

The agreement calls for countries in the tropics to be provided assistance to reduce deforestation and what is called degradation — mostly farming and small scale logging that destroys the forest undergrowth. It also includes a reference to conservation, a demand of India and Costa Rica who want financial assistance for the work already done to protect their forests.

Sticking points, however, remain.

Brazil would like Western governments to provide aid to a fund that would dole out money to countries that are reducing deforestation. Papua New Guinea and other developing nations want a system where countries could get credit for saving their forests, which eventually could be traded for money.

“We are saying ‘Brazil can have its fund and we will pray with them that there will be enough donated,” said Kevin Conrad, a special envoy for the Papua New Guinea’s prime minister who helped craft the deal. “But for the other developing countries, most are saying we see the power of markets and we understand markets.”

Other concerns are the methodology for verifying a country’s reforestation efforts, the corruption that remains rife in forest departments and concerns that the bid to save forests will force indigenous people off their land.

“The outcomes of the forest negotiations here in Bali do not include any guarantee that the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities regarding their forests,” Global Forest Coalition’s Managing Coordinator Simone Lovera said. “Instead, this entire process is dominated by the corporate interests of logging, soy and palm oil companies that have started to demand compensation for every tree they don’t cut down.”

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/15/asia/AS-GEN-Bali-Saving-Trees.php

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