REDD monitor news

By Steve Schwarzman, EDF, 3 February 2012 | Brazil’s National Climate Change Policy also calls for the creation of a Brazilian emissions reductions market. But the federal government has made little headway on creating its own carbon market and has been reluctant to look at linking up with international carbon markets to pay for reducing deforestation. Both could go a long way to creating the incentives needed to grow the economy and sustainably expand agriculture and forestry, while stopping deforestation and restoring degraded forests. What all of this means is that Brazil still leads the world in reducing carbon emissions because of its success in reducing Amazon deforestation – but risks reversing the trend if it approves a general amnesty for illegal deforestation. President Rousseff should listen carefully to Brazil’s world-class scientific community on how to balance environmental protection and development priorities, in the Forest Code and more broadly.

Radio Australia, 6 February 2012 | GARRETT: PNG has just had a record year for log exports and it is now the second biggest exporter of tropical hardwood logs in the world - what is your reaction to that? FLANNERY: Well, PNG has a problem because it is a very high emitting nation. Its in population terms, it is about a quarter the size of Australia and in land area about one tenth the size or less but it has emissions about one third as great as Australia and that is largely because of deforestation. So this is increasingly an issue for PNG and countries like it. GARRETT: It was logging on controversial Special Agricultural and Business Leases that allow clear felling rather than selective logging that's pushed PNG into record territory. How much of a concern is that? FLANNERY: Well, I think logging as a whole in PNG is a concern at many levels. One of the most significant, which leads to social conflict, is the nature of land tenure in Papua New Guinea...

By Finnigan Wa Simbeye, Tanzania Daily News, 6 February 2012 | Annually , the country loses an estimated 400,000 hectares of forest cover to logging mainly for energy, and timber used in construction and furniture making. "If we empower communities with skills to protect forests, we will stop deforestation and poverty escalation," said Dr Felician Kilahama, Director of Forestry and Beekeeping at Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. He was speaking to members of parliament at a climate change national strategy seminar organised by University of Dar es Salaam's Institute of Resource Assessment recently. Dar es Salaam alone uses over a million bags of charcoal per annum," the Director noted and lawmakers demanded that climate change be taken seriously with efforts equated to those that were mobilised to fight HIV and AIDS.Although the problem of deforestation is nationwide, currently there are the seven pilot project villages bordering Lake Tanganyika fighting the problem.

SCPDA Press Release, 7 February 2012 | The indigenous Wapichan people of Guyana, South America, will make public today a locally-made digital map of their traditional territory alongside a ground-breaking community proposal to care for 1.4 million ha of pristine rainforest for the benefit of their communities and the world. The territory’s rich variety of rainforests, mountains, wetlands, savannah grasslands and tropical woodlands are the homeland of 20 communities, who make a living from small-scale farming, hunting, fishing and gathering, which they have practised over the whole area for generations. The same area, located in the South Rupununi District, south-west Guyana, has an outstanding abundance of wildlife, including endangered species such as giant river otters, jaguars, and rare bush dogs as well as endemic species of fish and birds, like the Rio Branco Antbird.

By Finnigan Wa Simbeye, Tanzania Daily News, 6 February 2012 | Government has agreed to let 80 per cent of payments done under Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) to go to communities which protect forests. An official from Africa Wildlife Foundation, Godlisten Matilya, told a Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation Programme meeting held in Dar es Salaam over the weekend that after a lot of lobbying by environmental activists, the government has agreed that communities have the responsibility to protect forests hence should pocket the bulk of payments to be made under REDD. "It's communities that guard these forests because the government has inadequate forest officers to patrol these forests hence it's logical that REDD payments should benefit them," said Mr Matilya.

By Keith Akers, Compassionate Spirit, 3 February 2012 | Livestock is not just an important factor, but the key factor driving climate change. Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang put forward this idea in their 2009 WorldWatch article “Livestock and Climate Change,” and it is now receiving increased support and attention. In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations had said that livestock contribute about 18% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) — which isn’t anything to be sneezed at. But, actually, argue Goodland and Anhang, the real figure is even higher; at least 51% of all human-caused GHG emissions are due to livestock. More than half of all GHGs due to livestock? This totally changes the climate change debate. UNESCO described this as “what may be a large-scale paradigm shift” in the whole subject of dealing with climate change. The FAO has twice invited Robert Goodland to Europe to talk about their paper...

Kaieteur News, 5 February 2012 | Bruce Wrobel, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sithe Global, the developers contracted by the Guyana Government for the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Plant has said that he is willing to provide the Guyanese public with a copy of the contract for perusal to increase Transparency but Prime Minister Samuel Hinds says ‘not so fast.’ Hinds recently baffled reporters when he said that the Government has always been willing to and has provided information on the project, but as it relates to contract, Guyanese will have to wait until there is financial closure. Financial closure for the project has been elusive for several years now with the newest deadline set as June and hinges on the Inter-American Development Bank. This agreement with the Guyana Government and Sithe Global was inked five years ago.

Guyana Chronicle, 5 February 2012 | The Board of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) gave its final nod of approval Wednesday for the execution of the Institutional Strengthening Project for Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy initiative. According to a release from the Office of the President, under whose purview the initiative falls, the IDB’s approval paves the way for all remaining funds, totalling US$5.94 million, to flow directly to Guyana from the GRIF for full implementation. An initial sum of US1.06 million dollars of the total US$7 million project cost was released directly to Guyana from Norway last year for preparatory work to be undertaken. The project, which gained the approval of the GRIF Steering Committee on November 2, 2011, will mark the first in a series of LCDS projects submitted to the GRIF to receive approval from the IDB, which is serving as one of the partner entities to the GRIF.

Environmental Finance, 27 January 2012 | The UK government has invested £110 million ($157 million) into two new commercial funds, aiming to leverage in at least £3 billion of private capital for green investments in developing countries. Britain has committed £50 million to the Climate Catalyst Fund, which is a private equity fund of funds managed by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), and £60 million in the CP3 Asia fund, a clean-tech fund of funds developed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Asian Development Bank and the IFC, which will be managed by Credit Suisse. The two investments are among the first moves by the UK’s Climate Public Private Partnership – an initiative to attract major private investment into efforts to tackle climate change and boost economic growth. The funds will invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean technology, urban transport and the protection of natural resources such as forestry...

By Fidelis E. Satriastanti & Alina Musta’idah, Jakarta Globe, 1 February 2012 | Applicants for land concessions in Indonesia will soon be forced to clarify the boundaries of their land and show that there is no overlapping claims, the Forestry Ministry announced on Tuesday amid a recent eruption of violence linked to land disputes. Hadi Daryanto, the secretary general of the Forestry Ministry, said the government would revise a ministerial decree on the process to establish or extend working areas for forestry product concessions. “We will put the requirement for determination of the boundaries at the beginning of the process in the application for an IUPHHK,” Hadi said, referring to the permit for forest usage. He explained that as it stood now, the ministerial decree stated that determining the boundaries and making sure there were no other claims to any part of the area must be completed after the concession has been granted.

Climate Change Policy & Practice, 30 January 2012 | An agroforestry project financed by the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund in western Kenya presented a methodology for soil carbon sequestration through sustainable agricultural land management, which was approved by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). The methodology is expected to allow smallholder farmers in Kenya – and potentially worldwide - to adopt improved farming techniques, boost productivity and increase their resilience to climate change, while earning carbon credits. The methodology was developed by the World Bank for the Smallholder Agriculture Carbon Finance Project run by the non-governmental organization Vi Agroforestry, through a pilot project that involves over 60,000 smallholders who are farming 45,000 hectares of land. It is the first approved methodology for agricultural soil practices generating carbon credits.

By Anjali Nayar, Nature News & Comment, 1 February 2012 | A scramble to buy African land is threatening the continent’s sustainable development, according to reports launched today at the Royal Society in London. Of the 203 million hectares of land deals reported worldwide between 2000 and 20101, two-thirds were in Africa. The acquisitions are dispossessing millions of Africans of their land, to make way for expansive forestry and mineral projects and plantations, say a series of briefs2 and a report3 published by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an international coalition of groups working to increase community ownership of forests, based in Washington DC. The global report shows the scale of the issue as never before: three-quarters of Africa’s population and two-thirds of the landscape are at risk,” says Andy White, who coordinates the RRI.

Radio Australia, 2 February 2012 | William Laurance: There is a huge area of Papua New Guinea which has now been set aside for these SABLs. It's about 5.5 million hectares, about 11% of the countries land area and one of the common concerns is that these SABLs which were supposed to be designed for larger scale agricultural development, in fact, in many cases are being exploited by timber companies as a back-door or insidious way of getting around existing forestry regulations trying to limit the impact of industrial logging in PNG. So there is a lot of concern about that. These SABLs could have a huge impact in Papua New Guinea on the environment, on forest cover, on carbon storage and of course greenhouse gases and it could also have very profound social impacts because these are very long term leases that are being controlled by the government.

By Alex Morales, Bloomberg, 3 February 2012 | European Union policies to promote the use of biofuels for transportation will cost consumers as much as 126 billion euros ($166 billion) between now and 2020, two environmental groups said. The fuels, gasoline substitutes derived from plants, probably won’t cut greenhouse gases because forests are chopped down to make way for biofuel plantations, Friends of the Earth and ActionAid said today in an e-mailed statement. The European Commission said that while biofuels cost more than fossil fuels, it’s “reasonable” for motorists to pay extra. The EU aims to get 10 percent of its transport energy from biofuels, hydrogen and renewable power by 2020. The target aims to help cut the bloc’s emissions 20 percent from 1990 levels. The lobby groups said those goals will add a cumulative 94 billion euros to 126 billion euros just to fuel costs by 2020.

Economic Times, 1 February 2012 | India today asked all countries to "adhere and sincerely follow" the Kyoto Protocol which recognises principles of common but differentiated responsibility in dealing with the challenge of climate change. Addressing the 9th World CEO Sustainability Summit organized by TERI here, he said "we have acknowledged the fact that countries across the world have different levels of development, have differing abilities in adopting mitigation and adaptation measures for climate change". At the Durban Climate Conference in December last year, the countries had decided that the Kyoto Protocol would continue for another five years till 2017.

By Nina Chestney, Reuters, 2 February 2012 | U.N.-backed carbon permits were among the worst performing commodities in 2011 and trading volume fell more than 35 percent in January this year from December as the benchmark contract became very illiquid, renewing concerns about lack of demand. Prices for United Nations carbon credits, called certified emissions reductions (CERs), have sunk by more than 60 percent since January last year. In a poll by Reuters last month, carbon analysts cut price estimates for benchmark CERs in the first half of 2012 by over a quarter. Under the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism, countries and companies buy CERs to meet emissions caps agreed under the Kyoto Protocol, paying for cuts in developing country projects instead.

CIFOR Forests Blog, 2 February 2012 | Twenty-two dollars in Indonesia buys a 90-minute boat ride to watch orangutans. In Rwanda, to catch a glimpse of a mountain gorilla costs $500 – and the tourists are lining up. Could Indonesia charge foreign tourists $500 to see its great apes? “When we started (gorilla) tourism in Rwanda, people were paying $50. Now we are at $500,” Antoine Mudakikwa from the Rwanda Development Board, told a workshop on great apes at the Center for International Forestry Research. “Countries like Indonesia with a lot of natural resources have the potential to learn a lot from a country like Rwanda.” Both orangutans and mountain gorillas are classified as endangered species. Some 57,000 orangutans live in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo. Mountain gorillas, which live in Central Africa, are thought to number only about 800.

By Martin Hickman, The Independent, 31 January 2012 | Teeming with rare mammals, the Tripa swamp is an orangutan stronghold and vital carbon store in north-western Sumatra, an island larger than the UK whose natural wealth for decades has been relentlessly stripped by Indonesia's corrupt rulers. Nearly half its forest was burnt or chainsawed between 1985 and 2007, proportionally more than neighbouring Borneo, which is shared between Indonesia and the more orderly Malaysia and Brunei. Environmentalists are especially displeased because these 4,000 acres sit within the Leuser Ecosystem, a theoretically highly protected national park, which is home to 91 per cent of the 6,624 surviving Sumatran orangutans... Ultimately, south-east Asia's forests will only survive if they are worth more alive than dead. The UN's REDD initiative, which pays owners to preserve their trees, is probably is their best hope, but REDD is short of international donations.

By Finnigan Wa Simbeye, Tanzania Daily News, 1 February 2012 | Payments to communities which conserve their forests to help mitigate effects of global warming will become real next year when Kyoto Protocol expires and United Nations members agree on adopting Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) initiative. Norwegian Ambassador to Tanzania, Ingunn Klepsvik told lawmakers in Bagamoyo last Friday that her country is supporting the UN initiative to compensate poor countries which support conservation of forests which help keep carbon dioxide in tree trunks. "Under REDD, it is envisaged that a country that reduces its rate of deforestation will be awarded financially," Ms Klepsvik told members of parliament who formed Parliamentary Committees on Land, Housing and Natural Resources and that of Finance and Economic Affairs who were attending a seminar on climate change organized by Institute of Resources Assessment of University of Dar es Salaam.

GINA, 2 February 2012 | Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) will soon benefit from implementation support through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Guyana and The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) headed by Dr. R.K Pachauri, Nobel Prize Laureate and Chairman of the Inter- Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Former President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo and Shyam Nokta from the Office of the President held discussions in Delhi with Dr. R.K Pachauri and TERI officials which will see Guyana receiving support from TERI in the implementation of its climate initiatives and the LCDS. Among the broad areas identified for assistance include support for long- term strategy development in the energy sector with focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency and establishing a partnership for the setting up of a Centre for Biodiversity Studies.