Kyoto provision: Spare the forests, boost the economy

Economics weigh heavily in the conservation of rain forests such as the 888-square-mile Masoala National Park in Madagascar.

June 9, 2000
Web posted at: 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT)

By Environmental News Network staff

Imagine a world in which humans combat global warming, conserve the rain forest and fill the coffers of developing countries all at once. Proposed regulations in an international treaty to reduce greenhouses gases could make this scenario a reality, scientists report in today's Science.

"(Developing) countries that practice conservation are doing so at huge opportunity costs for themselves because they don't get aid," said Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. "They could make more money by logging."

Yet, a proposed provision in the Kyoto Protocol that would allow wealthy countries to receive credit for financing rain forest conservation in developing countries would also eliminate the economic incentive to sell the forest to logging concessions, said Kremen.

United Nations negotiators will begin meetings Monday in Bonn, Germany, to hammer out the details of this provision, known as the Clean Development Mechanism, before they meet in The Hague, Netherlands, in November to ratify the treaty.

"People would agree that forest conservation is a laudable goal," said Janine Bloomfield, an ecologist at Environmental Defense in New York and co-author of an accompanying article in Science. "But people are concerned whether it can be accounted for properly. Are the credits going to have integrity?"

The proposal to include protection of tropical rain forests in the Clean Development Mechanism is endorsed by several countries, including the United States, and several environmental groups, including Environmental Defense and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The proposal is not without skeptics. Countries such as Brazil wish to keep forests out of the plan. Some environmentalists are concerned that there is no way to ensure that when a country protects one area it does not offer equivalent lands to timber companies.

There is also concern among some European Union countries that such a mechanism undermines the true intent of the treaty to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

"Shouldn't the emphasis be on fossil fuel reductions?" said Bloomfield. "The majority of carbon emissions come from fossil fuels and it is where our efforts should be."

"However, forest conservation as well as other land-based methods of storing carbon or avoiding emissions have many environmental benefits and should be a supplement to fossil fuel reduction," she added.

Using Masoala National Park as a model, researchers showed that 8,000 local residents reap more than $1 million per year from rain forest products such as plants and animals used for food, medicine and construction materials.

In the Science study, Kremen and colleagues note that more than 32 million acres of tropical forest are lost each year to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture. As a result, at least 14,000 plant and animals species are rendered extinct and 5.6 to 8.6 gross tons of carbon are emitted.

Using Madagascar's 888-square-mile Masoala National Park as a model, the researchers showed that 8,000 local residents reap more that $1 million per year from rain forest products such as plants and animals used for food, medicine and construction materials.

However, a large-scale logging operation in the park would benefit Madagascar $2.37 million on a national level. "Thus, large-scale logging is a realistic prospective use for Masoala and similar areas," the authors write in Science.

In fact, logging companies were already prospecting for concessions on the Masoala Peninsula before the park was even established. Had the conservation and diplomatic community not applied pressure on the government of Madagascar to protect the area, one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world would have been lost, said Kremen.

Most countries do not have vigilant watchdog groups nor strict enforcement of environmental laws. Unless a financial benefit for forest conservation exists, the forests are likely to fall prey to logging interests, according to the Science article.

That is where the proposal to include protection of tropical rain forests in the Clean Development Mechanism comes into play. "If first world countries were to pay for forest conservation in developing countries, it would still be much cheaper than most other carbon-reduction projects would be," said Kremen.

Copyright 1999, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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