ForestCarbon Asia

Between 2001–2011, the evaluation of men’s and women’s participation in community forestry initiatives and the commercialising of forest products and market access dominated gender-focused forestry research.

Community forestry studies were mostly conducted in South Asia, while market access studies predominated in Africa. Most community forestry studies took place in India and Nepal, likely due to a long pattern of devolution reforms in forest management in the region. Market access studies were motivated by the focus on poverty reduction in the 1990s. Integrating gender into forest research is constrained by the broad perception that forestry is a male-dominated profession, lack of clarity among researchers about gender and a lack of technical skills, interest and/or awareness of gender. Women’s involvement is not a foregone conclusion.

On the one hand, some women have little interest in forest management; on the other, casual attempts to include women can simply add to their labour burden. Further research is needed on the nature and quality of governance arrangements; the dynamics and division of labour between men and women in mixed forest user-groups; how to transform incentives and attitudes of forestry officials; replicating ‘critical mass’ studies in settings other than Nepal and India; the implications of global processes; and interventions and trends on women’s relative participation in decision making and benefits capture.

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Climate change is increasingly being recognised as a global crisis, but responses to it have so far been overly focused on scientific and economic solutions. How then do we move towards more people-centred, gender-aware climate change policies and processes? How do we both respond to the different needs and concerns of women and men and challenge the gender inequalities that mean women are more likely to lose out than men in the face of climate change? This report sets out why it is vital to address the gender dimensions of climate change. It identifies key gender impacts of climate change and clearly maps the global and national policy architecture that dominates climate change responses.

The report maps pathways for making climate change responses more gender aware and – potentially – transformative, arguing that gender transformation should be both a potential end goal and an important condition of effective climate change responses and poverty reduction. The report provides inspiring examples of locally relevant, gender-aware innovations from diverse global regions and contexts. 

Recommendations include:

• Take into account the multiple dimensions of gender inequality and women’s and men’s experiences of climate change on the ground, and invest in research to enable this.
• Move beyond simple assumptions about women’s vulnerability to highlight women’s agency in adapting to and mitigating climate change. This will involve integrating women’s valuable knowledge and practical experience into policymaking processes.
• Learn from people-focused, gender-transformative approaches at the local level and apply these lessons to national and international policy.
• Promote a rights-based approach to climate change and ensure that all future climate change policies and processes draw on human rights frameworks such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
• Find alternatives to market-based approaches where possible, but when they are used to address climate change mitigation, ensure they benefit women equally and do not exclude or further disadvantage women.
• Address the underlying causes of gender inequality, tackling issues such as unequal land rights through legislative reforms and awareness-raising, as well as through the implementation of CEDAW and other relevant frameworks.

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The recent special issue on ‘Forests and Gender’ (International Forestry Review) is a breath of fresh air. While the scientific forestry community has been receptive to studies of women’s forest-related work, they have found some of our more theoretical and qualitative studies a hard slog. The use of terms such as ‘hegemony’, ‘symbolic representation’, ‘alterity’, and ‘habitus’ render such studies inaccessible to foresters.

This special issue, however, is written in accessible language and addresses important theoretical and practical topics that have passed under the collective radar screen. The authors address women’s active, if informal, forest management roles (for example, Bose, Brown, Lewark et al., Shackleton et al., Shanley et al.). Each paper goes beyond simple documentation to address broader issues.

Most articles give attention to local variation, whether between men and women, among ethnic groups, in how forest products are used, and/or over time and scale. Recurrent themes included women’s travel constraints, illiteracy, lack of legal rights and informal norms that discourage them from speaking up in public, all interfering with women’s efforts to improve their circumstances in life and contribute to better forest management.

Although there is little doubt that gender encompasses a range of ‘wicked problems’, this collection accompanies some encouraging trends: 1) the global research community’s increased sophistication in dealing with the holistic nature of gender issues; 2) the development of global mandates such as the Millennium Development Goals, several of which feature gender; 3) the growing acceptability of participatory approaches (needed to deal with the diversity and constraints in addressing women’s issues); and 4) a healthy, if early, recognition of men’s roles in gender issues.

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This book focuses on some of the key issues facing gender and forests, and considers how gender is being addressed both on the ground and in policy discussions on climate change and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

The first section of this book explores some of the main themes currently concerning forests and gender. The second section looks at case studies from around the world, demonstrating the wealth of learning and experience that is resulting from increased awareness and integration of gender issues within forestry work. The third and final section takes a step back and examines issues and progress at the international and global levels, bringing us up to date and forecasting future challenges and developments.

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International Women’s Day is the story of ordinary women making history. Today, the voices of women in Africa are being heard as they engage in action to limit climate change through deforestation.

With carbon emissions from forest loss estimated to account for about 20% of human-induced emissions, conserving forests is critical to tackling climate change. REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, a scheme under the United Nations climate convention, offers incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development.

In many parts of the world communities depend on forests as a source of fuel, food, medicines and shelter, and forests are home to nearly 90% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Forest resources directly support the livelihoods of 90% of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty, 70% of which are women.

“Women have enormous potential as agents of positive change and their leadership is critical when discussing climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. Yet women face daily conditions that limit their full participation,” says Lorena Aguilar, IUCN’s Senior Adviser on Gender.

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This IUCN Forest Conservation Programme Newsletter Issue 43 focuses on the role of gender in forest management and considers how gender is being addressed both on the ground and in policy discussions on climate change and REDD. By highlighting the importance of gender during this International Year of Forests, authors hope to help move the debate forward and centre to give it the recognition that it deserves.

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This bulletin explores how REDD+ planning and implementation can and should enhance the conditions of rural women in Asia and the Pacific. International discussions on REDD+ and climate change have explicitly addressed the needs of indigenous peoples. However, to date, efforts to link REDD+ and climate change activities to the specific protection of rights of women have been very limited. This brief explores how REDD+ planning and implementation can and should enhance the conditions of rural women in Asia and the Pacific.

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On 7 December 2011, a high level event entitled “Women and Climate Change: beyond Durban” was held in Durban, co-hosted by the Hon. Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) South Africa and President of COP 17/CMP 7 and the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ).

The objectives of the meeting were to bring together a significant number of Ministers and women leaders committed to highlighting the gender dimensions of climate change; to invite new members to join the Troika+; to provide an opportunity for Troika+ members to share their experiences and knowledge and to encourage women leaders to advocate for stronger gender outcomes in the texts under negotiation at COP 17.

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The initial purpose of this assessment was to identify good practices, lessons learned and key entry points for increasing women‘s participation in and benefit from REDD+ activities, as well as opportunities to advance gender equality through this sector. This study aimed to provide recommendations on how future REDD+ initiatives in Asia, including USAID/RDMA‘s (Regional Development Mission for Asia) new Sustainable Landscapes program, can successfully integrate gender into REDD+ projects to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of USAID‘s REDD+ work and that USAID assistance makes the optimal contribution to gender equality. This assessment was conducted prior to the award of the USAID/RDMA‘s Sustainable Landscapes project with the goal of informing its design. The findings of the assessment are being integrated into RDMA‘s Lowering Emissions from Asia‘s Forests (LEAF) project, launched in early 2011.

This assessment finds that women have not been systematically identified as stakeholders in REDD+ initiatives and, consequently, have not been involved in related discussions and activities. Additionally, gender issues have not been specifically identified by key actors as having any relevance to the sector. Therefore the focus of this assessment shifted to identifying the constraints to and opportunities for women‘s participation in REDD+ initiatives, particularly as country REDD+ readiness plans are being developed, as well as revealing the potential impacts of gender relations on REDD+ initiatives and vice versa.

Given the large number of current REDD+ programs in Asia, this assessment was not be able to review them all. Rather, it focused on programs that meet one or more of the following criteria: 1) they are far along in development; 2) they take social issues into consideration; or 3) they are likely to serve as examples or models for future REDD+ programs. This assessment reviews both community-based approaches and commercial forestry approaches in four Asian countries—Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Nepal—and reviews the issues in these countries as well as in the Mekong, insular Southeast Asia, and South Asia sub-regions.

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Indonesia’s progress in reforming its forestry sector will not be sufficient to meet its pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020, Norway’s environment minister said on Tuesday.
Norway has been impressed by what Indonesia has achieved in terms of transparency in the forest sector and by a change towards being more pro-environment in policy debates around land use, said its environment minister, BÃ¥rd Vegar Solhjell.

However, deforestation continues in areas not covered by the moratorium as well as illegally in the country’s carbon-rich tropical forests and peatlands. Permits to clear land are often given out by local governors and there is a lack of central government enforcement.

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The government plans to allocate RM3 billion for expansion of forest plantations in the country to achieve an area covering 375,000 hectares by 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said today.

He said the government had so far allocated more than RM600 million for the development of forest plantations in the country. Muhyiddin said the timber industry was one of the important economic sector, contributing RM20 billion in export value or 14.1 per cent of the country’s total export, totalling RM141.2 billion last year. The timber industry had generated an average annual export revenue of RM21.7 billion between 2006 and 2010, and provided employment to almost 300,000 people, he added.

The deputy prime minister said he was confident that the formulation of the National Timber Industry Policy (NATIP) would also enhance the development of the country’s timber industry and achieve the target of RM53 billion in exports by 2020.

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Research based on the FAO’s Global Forest Resource Assessment 2010 calculates that the annual loss of tropical forest cover in the decade to 2010 has been 9.3 million hectares, an area larger than Scotland. The root cause of deforestation is the failure of the world’s market economy to award any value to the intrinsic environmental assets of the rainforest. This malfunction contrasts with the rocketing prices of timber, paper, furniture, minerals, fossil fuels, meat, cosmetics and biofuels, each of which is linked with forest destruction.

Demand for these goods, and food production in particular, will continue to be underpinned by global population growth and rising affluence. Extracting timber resources from a forest prior to its clearance for agriculture offers an irrestistible business model to prospective investors.

These twin drivers of deforestation play out differently in each forest country. The dominant forces in South America are cattle ranching and soy agriculture. Oil palm plantations are the main culprit in Southeast Asia, where Indonesia and Malaysia supply 85% of the global market.

Forest degradation is the term which expresses a less drastic loss of forest cover. Where industrial logging is selective in its approach, it may be assessed as forest degradation. However, the upside is that in temperate regions of the world, forest cover is increasing. Deforestation is countered by extensive programmes of replanting and forest regeneration, especially in China, India and Vietnam.

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As Indonesia marks the first year of a two-year moratorium on deforestation that followed a pledge of a billion dollars from Norway, a coalition of international and local green groups urged Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this week to strengthen the moratorium so that it becomes a real instrument to reduce, and ultimately halt, deforestation in the country. 

“The existing moratorium only suspends the issue of new forest use permits, it did not order a review of existing permits. There are other glaring loopholes in the moratorium which need to be addressed if Indonesia is to honour its international commitments,” Yuyun Indradi, forests policy adviser, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said at a press briefing Monday. Such concerns are being raised ahead of the Rio+ summit on sustainable development next month. 

The environment groups say the ban is being undermined by weak legislation and weak enforcement, and provides little extra protection for forests or carbon-rich peatlands, and nothing to protect the rights of forest-dependent indigenous peoples and local communities.

Indonesian President Yudhoyono has pledge to cut emissions in his country between 26 percent and 41 percent with the help of the international community by 2020. But he has pointed out the importance of the contribution of the forest-based industries to the country’s economy. A recent study showed this contribution to be approximately 21 billion dollars a year – 3.5 percent of the national economy. The sector employs around 4 percent of the working population.

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California is on the verge of opening a greenhouse gas/carbon trading market that may ultimately rival the European Union’s carbon trading market as the largest organized carbon market in the world.  The state has recently proposed modifications to the regulations governing its nascent carbon cap-and-trade market that would clarify a number of processes, and would also establish a formal link between California’s cap-and-trade program and a similar carbon cap-and-trade program in Quebec, Canada.  Comments on the newly proposed regulations are required to be filed by June 28, 2012 with the California Air Resources Board of the California Environmental Protection Agency (“CARB”).  

California’s long-awaited cap-and-trade program was mandated in 2006 as part of California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, generally known as “AB32.”  AB32 requires that greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions in California be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020, and the state aims to reduce emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.  In accordance with AB32, CARB adopted final regulations instituting a GHG cap-and-trade program in October 2011. 

The cap-and-trade program emissions limitations will cover 360 businesses representing 600 facilities that are collectively responsible for 85 percent of California’s GHG emissions.  The limitations will be imposed in two phases:  (i) in 2013 the regulations will limit GHG emissions of major industrial sources and electric utilities, and (ii) in 2015 distributors of transportation fuels, natural gas and other fuels will also become subject to the regulations.

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The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is encouraging government bodies, private companies and individuals to plant more trees in a bid to increase forest cover in Laos. This year, the ministry hopes that between the various sectors and companies, a total of 30,000 hectares of land can be planted out with both industrial and native trees. 

Forestry Department Director General Dr Siravanh Sawathvong told Vientiane Times yesterday that a total of 12 million saplings of industrial, ornamental and native trees are being prepared for planting with the wet season almost here. 

Some 17,000 hectares of land have been cleared for plantation timber so far, with industrial plantations to focus on rubber, eucalyptus and agarwood, Dr Siravanh said. Meanwhile other areas will not require clearing and saplings will be planted among existing vegetation. Meanwhile native saplings will also be planted in conservation and protected areas, and native and ornamental species planted along roadsides and in parks and gardens. The native saplings being raised include may dou, may tae and may tiew.

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Contents:

• Introduction to REDD+ initiative, international negotiation process, REDD+ readiness in Vietnam and necessary of participation of forest management agencies.
• Introduction to UN-REDD Vietnam Programme, the methods of REDD+ implementation, requirements and benefits of REDD+ implementation in Vietnam.
• Orientation on sustainable forestry development; MARD’s plan on responding to climate change and REDD+ implementation.
• Integrating climate change into the forest protection and development plan 2011 – 2020.
• Some legal issues related to REDD+ initiative in Vietnam.
• The roles of women on REDD+ activities.
• The roles of women on forest protection and management, sustainable forest development programs, REDD+, and respond to climate change.
• Action plan of VNFOREST’s women on REDD+ implementation and responding to climate change.

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Monitoring is important in implementing afforestation and reforestation projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This e-learning course presents the methods for carbon monitoring in these types of projects, and includes four modules: 

• Module 1: Preparing for Project Monitoring (reviews key concepts, such as carbon pools, project stratification and boundary, sampling design and species data)
• Module 2: Monitoring Forest Carbon Stocks (how to measure various forest carbon pools)
• Module 3: Monitoring Project Emissions and Leakage (explores sources of project emissions and leakage)
• Module 4: Calculating and Reporting Carbon Emission Reductions

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Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ (JNR) Secretariat Co-chairs Naomi Swickard and Robert O’Sullivan will host a webinar to describe the new JNR requirements in detail. 

The draft JNR requirements set out the first global framework for the jurisdiction-wide and nested crediting of activities that Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and enhance forest carbon stocks (REDD+).

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Hosted by the Bhutan Ministry of Agriculture and Forests and the National Commission for Women and Children, Bhutan, this international conference will be held in Thimphu, Bhutan from 15 to 19 October, at the Taj Tashi Hotel. The focus of the conference will be a comprehensive stock-taking on research and knowledge, as well as lessons learned, challenges, and opportunities for gender and sustainable mountain development in light of new and ongoing drivers of change. 

Bhutan+10 will bring together mountain women and men, researchers, policy makers, and development practitioners from the Hindu Kush Himalayan region and around the world. It is a global event of international significance and regional impact, and will conclude with a shared vision and strategic commitment for gender equitable and sustainable mountain development in a post-Rio+20 context. The conference will set new strategic agendas and chart new ways forward for gender-positive change, knowledge generation, and policies for gender and sustainable mountain development in a changing world. 

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