Tag Archives: forest
New Tool to Improve Assessment of Forest Biomass and Carbon Stocks
A new online platform launched by FAO will allow countries to improve the assessment of forest volumes, biomass and carbon stocks. This data is crucial for climate change research and mitigation activities, such as increasing the carbon stock in forests through reforestation, and bioenergy development. The new GlobAllomeTree, jointly developed by FAO, the French Research Centre CIRAD and Tuscia University of Italy, is an international, web-based platform designed to help climate-change project developers, researchers, scientists and foresters calculate forest biomass and forest carbon. This data will assist national policymakers in making informed decisions about their climate change and bioenergy strategies. “This is the first time that countries have access to an extensive database of tree models used to evaluate forest resources worldwide. It allows them to get a clear picture on their forests’ capacities to store carbon,” said FAO Forestry Officer Matieu Henry. Easy to access and use The tool enables users to assess stem volume, tree biomass and carbon stocks from tree characteristics such as trunk diameter, height and wood specific gravity, for various types of trees and ecological zones. Access to the tool is free and users can also develop and submit their own calculation models. At current status, the tool covers 61 tree species in 7 different ecological zones in Europe, 263 tree species in 16 ecological zones in North America and 324 species in 9 ecological zones in Africa. The calculation tools for South Asia, South-East Asia and Central and South America are soon to be finalized and uploaded to the platform. Forest carbon estimation for REDD+ This new platform will be particularly useful in the context of REDD+ activities (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and increasing the carbon stock in forests), where governments will need more accurate assessment of the forest carbon stocks and carbon stock changes. In this context, a few countries have already advanced their approaches to forest monitoring for REDD+ by using tree calculation models. For example, national institutions in Vietnam supported by the UN-REDD National Programme have conducted field measurements to develop new calculation models in a number of forest types throughout the country. Indonesia has produced and adopted a national standard for developing tree databases, and in Mexico, national forest authorities have developed a national database and new calculation tools. These efforts will help countries to obtain more accurate data on the status of forest resources and forest carbon stocks and changes and support implementation of national and international forestry policies. Continue reading
U.S. Forest Management Policy Must Evolve To Meet Bioenergy Targets
Jun 19, 2013 U.S. forest management policy must evolve to meet bioenergy targets In order to keep pace with the burgeoning demand for renewable energy, forest management policy in the U.S. must change to address environmental sustainability issues, according to an article by a University of Illinois expert in bioenergy law. Unless the forestry sector can tailor sustainable forest management policies specifically to forest-to-energy feedstocks, its role in helping the country broaden its energy portfolio – and by extension, meeting ambitious bioenergy targets – may be limited in large part because of uncertainty about whether existing policies can effectively constrain overharvesting, said Jody Endres, a professor of bioenergy, environmental and natural resources law at Illinois. “Because we have a federal system of government, we don’t have a one-size-fits-all policy on land use and biofuels,” said Endres, who also is an affiliate of the Energy Biosciences Institute, a collaboration between the U. of I., the University of California at Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the energy company BP. “In a lot of environmental and natural resources law in the U.S., the primary role lies with the states to manage private land. But we also have national-level problems, like climate change, biodiversity and water-quality issues, which span jurisdictions. In other words, ecosystem services are not confined to a single state’s jurisdiction. So we have this crazy-quilt system in the U.S. that needs to be untangled.” The paper, which was published in the Vermont Law Review, was written to pinpoint what U.S. policy looks like, “which is very complicated because of the intermingling of state and federal policy,” Endres said. “We don’t have a coordinated public, state or federal policy in the U.S. about what sustainability means in the bioenergy context,” she said. “We don’t have one overarching policy that says, ‘This is how you assess land for biodiversity, or for water quality.’ So this patchwork of policies really makes it difficult for outsiders like European regulators looking in. A lot of misperceptions grow out of that.” According to Endres, the U.S. needs to craft some sort of integrated standard that covers not only the purpose-grown, short-rotation biomass crops such as the perennial grass miscanthus, but also forested plantations and seminatural environments, and be able to assess whether there are actually some ecological and climate benefits for getting those lands into the bioenergy system. “Those are the problems that bioenergy in the U.S. is facing, and it’s all really very nascent, but we know it’s problematic,” she said. “How do we translate that into a policy and into a sustainability certification? How do we make it economic while also providing an on-ramp for consideration of the ecological properties of forests in terms of larger scale landscapes and connectivity? That’s yet to be decided, but the paper lays it out what the points of contention look like.” It’s an interesting conversation to have in the U.S., because unlike Europe, “we still have some natural or seminatural forest left,” Endres said. “Ultimately, the goal is for U.S. forestry interests to access the European bioenergy, which may involve an additional level of certification or verification. We certainly have mandates here in the U.S., but they’re becoming much more stringent about certification in Europe.” According to Endres, there are two main certification programs in the U.S. – the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. “Those are the two dueling standards in the U.S., but what they don’t do is address bioenergy applications specifically, and that’s mainly the carbon foot-printing of managing forests for bioenergy,” she said. “Through all of these bioenergy policies, one of the main goals is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But we’re not there yet in terms of how to design a policy that chooses the appropriate measurement methodology for carbon fluxes within forests, because what you really want is a net greenhouse gas reduction. Private standards have not determined yet how to account for that – the science is still nascent on the effects of sustainability standards, as well as the time horizons for accounting in comparison to business as usual.” Assessing whether a land is natural, seminatural or a plantation is also something that the U.S. doesn’t do neatly in one overarching bioenergy policy. “We need to be able to classify land so we know whether or not we can access it for bioenergy applications that would be additional to, for example, lumber or paper, although those markets have been in general decline over the past decade,” Endres said. “The renewable energy directive in Europe is not going away. Forest product industries are actually gearing up to access those markets, and ultimately consumers, especially the type who go to big-box stores and look for sustainability certification on two-by-fours and other products, will likely want to see that forests aren’t overharvested. The European Union also may want to see that in some type of formal certification.” Thus, bioenergy now carries the burden, whether justified or not, to address perceived shortfalls in sustainable forest management, Endres said. “It is simply not enough in policy design, given the historically highly charged debate about forest sustainability, to make assumptions that existing sustainable forest management policies provide the assurances necessary for stakeholders, particularly environmental and wildlife organizations, to support forest-based bioenergy initiatives,” she said. “The main environmental groups are very concerned with over-sourcing from natural and seminatural private forest lands and federal lands. And they were actually successful at the federal level at keeping federal forests off-limits from the Renewable Fuel Standard.” According to Endres, forest policy since the early 1970s has grappled with how to manage forests holistically, “so I applaud bioenergy for bringing that conversation to the forefront on how we can really manage forests in a more informed, connected way at the ecosystem level,” she said. “We could really learn a lot from Brazil’s Forest Code protections for water quality and habitat connectivity derived from forests simply because they’ve been under the microscope since the 1990s for how they’ve managed their forests, including the Amazon rainforest,” she said. “But with the emergence of bioenergy, the whole world is going to participate in that conversation, and I see that dialogue as paradigm changing, as something that will ultimately benefit both the environment and humanity.” The Energy Biosciences Institute supported the research. Source: UI Urbana-Champaign Continue reading
Gold Standard Acquires CarbonFix In Bid To Reshape Forest Carbon Landscape
Author: Molly Peters-Stanley Even as the market for forest carbon offsets continues to spawn new standards for project development, two existing standards are tying the knot – and tying into the global carbon market’s next big question: how to view (and credit!) forest carbon projects as the sum of their many parts? 18 September 2012 Ever since their inception, the Gold Standard for carbon offsets has focused on projects that deliver energy-efficient technology while the CarbonFix standard has focused on projects that plant trees. Today, however, the Gold Standard made a bold move beyond its traditional role as an energy-only carbon offset standard – announcing that it has acquired CarbonFix to integrate into a (literally) greener Gold Standard version 3.0. This represents the first effort of its kind to begin consolidating demand and expertise under one brand – in a market that otherwise continues to proliferate new standards for project certification. Carbon offsets certified to the Gold Standard, which are eligible for use by compliance as well as voluntary buyers, are well recognized by consumers for their contributions to sustainable development. In recent years, the standard has held its own among the top three standards most sought-after by corporate voluntary offset buyers, according to the State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets annual report . The CarbonFix Standard, first tracked by Ecosystem Marketplace in 2007, maintains a significantly smaller market share but a high average price (averaging in $17/tCO2e range in 2011). When combined, market observers say a new land use-ready Gold Standard could give existing forestry standards a run for their market share. “Gold Standard is recognized for its great reputation – especially among voluntary buyers who remain the world’s dominant source of demand for land use, land-use change and forestry projects (LULUCF),” says Jason Patrick, Head of Commercialization at forest carbon investment firm Permian Global. “If they can bring that kind of consumer recognition to forestry, I think it will be a positive development for the land use market broadly defined, and voluntary buyers specifically.” Also today, The Gold Standard announced an MOU with its sibling Forest Stewardship Council (the FSC and Gold Standard are both endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund), which will see the two organizations leverage their respective approaches to social and environmental safeguards and carbon certification. This is particularly relevant given the Gold Standard’s aim to eventually move beyond CarbonFix’s traditional focus on Afforestation and Reforestation (A/R) projects to also support Improved Forest Management (IFM) and climate smart agriculture projects – possibly in combination. Changing with the compliance landscape Michael Sahm, Head of Communications for project proponent Forest Carbon Group, suggests that all of these maneuvers may help the Gold Standard keep pace with a rapidly changing compliance marketplace – where the Gold Standard is the only independent standard traditionally applied to some energy projects that generate credits under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and that wish to certify their contributions to sustainable development. “With changes in the CDM market starting 2013 (i.e. excluding notable volumes of carbon credits from China and India), the focus is shifting from industrial type of projects in Asia to land use based projects in poorer countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia,” Sahm points out. “There, you don’t find an industrial infrastructure for technology-driven climate change mitigation activities – those countries’ assets are forestry and agriculture.” The Gold Standard is indeed looking to grow its presence within the still-small compliance forest carbon offset markets – and to this end finds itself on the same page with a major market player, the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, which remains the largest buyer of CDM forestry credits. In recent interviews, both the Gold Standard and BioCarbon Fund representatives have spoken about the need for “landscape level” accounting that accounts for and credits multiple mitigation activities within a single project area, instead of treating each project activity separately. “Whether the project approach includes A/R or forest management and agriculture or renewable energy, these activities should all be streamlined for use in combination,” explains Gold Standard CEO Adrian Rimmer. “Given our background in energy, combined with the CarbonFix approach to forest carbon accounting and FSC’s experience with forest management and forest stakeholders, this is a place where we’re well positioned to play a role in making all of the elements of a project work together.” The BioCarbon Fund’s Ellysar Baroudy notes that the announcement is well timed, given the Fund’s similar considerations to landscape scale approaches – which were described in its submission today to the UN’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) that recommends more generic accounting principles should be used for landscape approaches in developing countries. “When we talk about A/R, we can no longer talk about it in isolation from other project activities, so we think this is a great step,” she says. “Breaking down sectoral silos to ensure a more practical way to achieving better land management through climate-smart agriculture, rural energy projects and others, will lead to an integrated and more effective approach to development,” Baroudy says, adding that the BioCarbon Fund looks forward to working with the Gold Standard to further this development. To this point, Baroudy notes that landscape level project accounting may be a component of projects that the BioCarbon Fund explores for the third tranche of projects it will support, though the discussion is still in its infancy. The Fund already branched out from its traditional support of CDM A/R projects to also invest in REDD activities and climate smart agriculture within its second tranche of project-level investments. Many forests, many approaches Project-level REDD and climate smart agriculture projects haven’t yet been formally recognized for crediting under the existing UN framework – both project types currently rely upon voluntary carbon offset buyers to finance project development and activities. Several forest carbon offset standards underpin existing and pipeline voluntary market projects, including CarbonFix and over a dozen other independent and country-specific approaches. None has a larger market share than the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) which, often in combination with the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCB), was the market’s leading standard for both REDD and A/R project certification in 2011. While the Gold Standard plans to explore methodologies for climate smart agriculture, a venture into the REDD market does not appear to be on its near-term land use agenda. Rimmer says that the Gold Standard will consider integrating other elements of the Gold Standard within its land use program – like a micro-scale project approach that may help reduce transaction costs for small scale forestry projects. Several market players have expressed relief that the Gold Standard’s acquisition of CarbonFix avoids the creation of yet another forest carbon offset standard – and suspect that at least a few A/R projects may consider transitioning from the VCS to the Gold Standard/CarbonFix. Says one major verifier currently working with both VCS and CarbonFix projects, “If the Gold Standard adopts the CarbonFix standard, we may see some projects that currently operate under the VCS make the switch – simply because the CarbonFix program has seen fewer changes over the last several months and newer project developers seem to think that it’s an easier approach.” Projects that wish to transition from CarbonFix to the Gold Standard should anticipate a few changes of their own, between now and when the Gold Standard aims to launch version 3.0 of its standard in mid-2013. Pieter van Midwoud, CarbonFix Executive Secretary and latest addition to the Gold Standard team, explains that existing CarbonFix projects will continue to be assessed as CarbonFix projects while the two standards conduct a “technical alignment of CarbonFix with Gold Standard procedures, governance structures and infrastructure.” Then, qualifying projects will transition to the Gold Standard as pilots. He says it also means that, as of today, projects seeking Gold Standard accreditation can begin work under the CarbonFix Standard with the aim of being grandfathered into the new system when that becomes a possibility. Continue reading
