Decoding Degradation in REDD

How do we recognize subtle or gradual changes in forest condition without getting up close? RECOFTC's Ben Vickers explains what kind of changes must we look for and how to track them.

How do we recognize subtle or gradual changes in forest condition without getting up close? Exactly what kind of changes must we look for? These and other questions were address in a workshop with the aim of identifying key messages on forest degradation in relation to REDD.

With an eye on the UNFCCC climate change talks that begun this week in Bonn, Germany, RECOFTC recently held a workshop identifying some key messages on forest degradation for international negotiators and Asia-Pacific policymakers to consider. Top of the list was that "including forest degradation in REDD is both feasible and essential for effectively combating climate change." Furthermore, community forestry and other decentralized forest management systems would be central to national efforts to address forest degradation, and would mobilize many local stakeholders to assess degradation and monitor carbon stocks.

The issue of assessing forest degradation has been a source of puzzlement and frustration for many following the REDD debate. As COP-15 in Copenhagen draws ever closer, some resolution is required. Addressing and Assessing Forest Degradation was the topic of a REDD ‘distillation workshop' organized by RECOFTC in partnership with The Nature Conservancy-led Responsible Asia Forest and Trade program, and funded by USAID. The workshop participants, a select group of REDD experts and policymakers from the Asia-Pacific region, agreed that the contribution of forest degradation to climate change is of particular concern in this region.

Forests are, of course, prominent features of rural landscapes and with the satellite technology currently at our fingertips, recognizing their presence or absence is a relatively simple matter. But how do we recognize subtle or gradual changes in forest condition without getting up close? Exactly what kind of changes must we look for? Workshop participants, including national REDD focal points from Indonesia and Vietnam along with several key experts from government bodies, research institutions and NGOs, spent two days of intensive discussions on these and related questions. The full workshop report is available on the RECOFTC website here.

As Thomas Enters noted in last month's commentary, defining degradation depends on the context. For REDD, the salient issue is the loss of carbon in the form of biomass. Or, as workshop participants concluded, "a measurable, human-induced decline in the carbon stock in areas that remain as forest, over a specified time period." The direct causes of degradation, participants agreed, vary with national circumstances and range from largely commercial activities including selective logging to subsistence-based activities such as fuelwood collection and shifting cultivation. The underlying drivers, however, were common to all. These can be summarized as the failure to effectively address rural poverty and forest governance, linked to the failure of international markets to recognize the value of environmental services.

Without including forest degradation, national REDD baselines cannot accurately reflect the level of emissions from the forest sector. This will require more resources, particularly human resources, than a mechanism for deforestation alone. The mobilization of local communities, for basic carbon accounting work as well as the application of improved forest management practices, can and should play a major part in filling this human resource deficit. By providing these services, local people will not only play a key role in helping REDD succeed in its primary aim; they will also generate much needed income.

The workshop revealed the readiness of policy-makers to share and seek new ideas and areas of consensus with civil society, an encouraging sign for the region. In the inclusion of degradation within an international REDD mechanism, the interests of Asia-Pacific negotiators and local communities are clearly aligned. The more opportunities regional parties have to unify their key messages, the greater the chance that their mutual interests will be realized in Copenhagen and beyond.

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