Tag Archives: trees
Trees The Answer To Carbon Capture
By Ross Hampton – posted Wednesday, 24 July 2013 When the Government recently announced the switch from carbon tax to carbon trading, it also quietly deferred $200 million which was supposed to help industry develop ‘carbon capture and storage’ technology. There has been little outcry because, by all accounts, innovations in this area are coming at a slow pace. Coincidentally $200 million is exactly the figure which the forest industry has put before government for an alternate ‘carbon capture and storage’ scheme which is not only a sure bet but, ‘shovel ready’. I am talking about trees. Consider this. Trees ‘capture’ carbon as they grow. When they are harvested for products, like furniture and house frames, they continue to ‘store’ the carbon for many decades. Following harvest, the forest regenerates (or plantations are replanted), with the new trees ‘capturing’ even more carbon from the atmosphere for storage in yet more products. It is the most perfectly virtuous of carbon cycles. The scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who set the international carbon accounting rules, have long been unequivocally in favour of the ‘harvest and regrow’ scenario. In 2007 they pronounced, “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustainable yield of timber, fibre, or energy from the forest will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefits.” At home, our scientists have replicated international studies. They have proven that a well-managed, production forest is up to 240 per cent better at storing carbon over the long term than if the same area is locked away. So why haven’t state and federal government programs turbo-charged best practice forestry as a given for a carbon constrained economy?The answer is as simple as it is challenging – trees take time. Trees are a long term investment with long term benefits. However, in Australia, much about climate change programs has been geared to the short term as we have focused on quick wins. The big winners have been the ‘off the shelf’ solutions, which, courtesy taxpayer subsidies, deliver a compelling and fast ‘return on investment’ for company accountants. The most striking example is the exponential growth of wind turbines. Thousands now dot our landscapes and, according to energy forecasts, they will soon be joined by tens of thousands more as we relentlessly track towards our bipartisan ‘20 per cent renewable energy by 2020’ target. Expect to hear and see many more protests as that happens. Industrial scale wind farms have some strident critics who point to their impact on the landscape, health and communities. But there is a very large irony here if you stop to think about it.By attempting to address an uncoated ‘externality’ in carbon emissions we are, with wind installations, arguably creating a raft of other negative externalities. If we turned to trees to help solve our carbon conundrum, the externalities would all be positive. They include erosion and salinity prevention, biodiversity, picnic areas, walking tracks, not to mention jobs and growth for our regions. In Europe these ‘value adds’ are often captured under the umbrella of ‘eco-system services’. Governments are now turning attention to developing the methodologies to appropriately ‘price’ them. It is a belated recognition that trees really do deliver the ‘resource par excellence’ for a more enlightened twenty first century of development. Back home, trees also give Australian policy makers the opportunity to turn the policy dial to these longer term, and net positive, settings. All it takes is an agreement to bring forward payment to the time of planting for the carbon stocks which will accumulate in the trees. In effect the Government would be hedging a future, and growing, market. This is a vital change to counteract the main disincentive to investment in new tree planting – the long wait for a return on high establishment costs. It would be a win-win for government and forest communities. The government would ‘bank’ the carbon credits to sell in carbon markets. The trees, harvested and re-planted in rotation, would sustain the forest industry into the future. Based on modest carbon price estimates, an initial investment of $200 million per year, over the first three years, would eventually become cost neutral, even paying back the ‘seeding’ funds. And that result doesn’t even start to calculate the additional carbon which we would be putting in the bank in terms of the timber products made from trees. Or the massive energy benefits available if we were to use the forest process residues (smaller branches and mill off-cuts) to fire up generators replacing other less environmentally friendly power. At present Australia’s plantations provide a carbon emissions offset of 4 per cent against our national carbon emissions target. This policy would allow this to surge to 10 per cent by 2050. Great for our carbon constrained future economy and great for our forestry communities. Continue reading
Profits From Forests? Leave The Trees Standing
Financially, using the NSW Southern Forestry Region for carbon credits is a better option than continued harvesting. Flickr/Tony Rodd In debates about climate change and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, there is a widely-held belief that market mechanisms, like the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme, will reduce emissions in the cheapest possible way. As a matter of pure theory, this is correct but, in practice, it depends on what is included and excluded from the scheme and how it is designed. One of the most commonly overlooked sources of carbon abatement is public native forestry, which is currently excluded from the carbon pricing scheme and the government’s offset scheme, the Carbon Farming Initiative . This is despite the fact that stopping the harvesting of public native forests is one of the cheapest ways to reduce Australia’s emissions. A struggling industry For the past two decades, the Australian native forest sector has been in decline, primarily because of increased competition in domestic and international wood product markets. Starting in 2008, an already bad situation took a turn for the worse as the global financial crisis choked-off demand for native woodchips and solid wood product consumption slumped. Since then, the native woodchip sector has struggled to stay afloat, a fact reflected in the financial performance of state forest agencies. For example, over the period 2009 to 2012, the Forests Corporation of NSW (formerly known as Forests NSW) made a total net loss before tax (excluding net fair value adjustment, asset revaluation and impairment of assets) of $85 million, or $21 million per year . In total, the native forest sector, which takes in growing, harvesting, processing and manufacturing wood products, now accounts for a mere 0.1% of Australian Gross Domestic Product — roughly $1.5 billion per year. The emergence of carbon markets offers an alternative use for native forests. Rather than chopping them down for little financial return, the forests could be left standing in order to generate carbon credits. Opportunity for carbon credits The Australia Institute recently conducted a financial analysis on the Southern Forestry Region of New South Wales , which compared the net financial benefits from harvesting and processing native logs to the net financial benefits that could be derived by using the forests to generate carbon credits. For the period 2014-2033, the Forestry Corporation of NSW and relevant hardwood processors were estimated to suffer losses of between A$40 million and A$77 million. In contrast, stopping harvesting could generate 1.7 million carbon credits per year for the NSW Government over the period 2014-2033, and the sale of these credits (accounting for transaction and management costs) is likely to provide net benefits of approximately A$222 million. The simple message is, if the public native forests of this region continue to be used to produce woodchips and sawnwood, the industry and taxpayers will lose money. If the forests are used for carbon credits, they are likely to return a profit for the community. Some uncertainties Leaving our trees standing is a cheap way to reduce carbon emissions. Flickr/Poytr Of course, any analysis of this nature comes with caveats. For starters, conditions in domestic and international wood product markets could improve, or new markets might emerge, reviving the fortunes of native forest operators. This is possible but unlikely. There is also the challenge of accessing carbon credits. After recent changes to international accounting rules, stopping or reducing harvesting in native forests will now provide credits that can be used by the Australian government to meet its international mitigation commitments. However, as noted, projects involving stopping harvesting in public native forests are not currently eligible to generate carbon credits under the Carbon Farming Initiative. The federal government is expected to change this rule in the near future and thereby ensure that state governments are able to benefit from improvements in forest management practices. Finally, even if the Carbon Farming Initiative is expanded to include these projects, there are uncertainties surrounding the calculation of carbon credits and the price they will attract in relevant markets. Despite these uncertainties, the analysis shows that even under adverse circumstances, using the forests for carbon credits is likely to bring greater financial returns than continued harvesting. While debate about cutting greenhouse gas emissions usually focuses on the energy sector, the reality is that some of cheapest ways we can cut emissions is through changes in the way we use our forests and landscapes. Preserving native forests is no longer just for tree huggers. The time has come when leaving forests standing makes sense for purely financial reasons. Continue reading
Liquid cash or solid Investment? Trees Offer New Approach For Cameroon’s Farmers
Source: Thu, 23 May 2013 12:31 PM Author: Valerie Gwinner Tree planting by smallholder farmers in Cameroon could boost on-farm timber production and help avert forest destruction. Photo courtesy of Ollivier Girard/CIFOR. Smallholder farmers in Cameroon fell the trees in their fields simply to raise quick cash – but the practice could point to a new and sustainable way to make a living, according to forestry researchers. “What farmers don’t realize is that, collectively, they are now the biggest suppliers of the domestic timber market,” said Valentina Robiglio, lead author of a collaborative study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins (ASB) that looked at the ways Cameroonians integrate agriculture and small-scale logging. In selling timber from the trees in their fields, farmers are mainly just being opportunistic, despite having a good position in the value chain, Robiglio noted. “They may sell several trees each year to make some extra money, to pay school fees, for example,” she said. “But the farmers do not consider trees as an investment or resource that needs to be managed sustainably.” The domestic timber market in Cameroon is booming. Demand nearly tripled over the past decade, far outpacing the supply from the formal sector. Indeed, 80 percent of the timber traded in the capital city, Yaoundé, comes from the informal sector, according to a 2011 report by the present study’s co-authors, CIFOR scientists Paolo Cerutti and Guillaume Lescuyer . Most of this timber is sourced from the country’s central region, where farmers practice shifting cultivation: after clearing land, they grow staple or cash crops for a short period, then leave the land to fallow for several years so that it can recover its fertility. “Farmers don’t see themselves as timber producers and don’t realize that they could negotiate higher prices for their timber,” Robiglio explained. “It’s as if the farmers are not only supplying but also subsidizing the internal market.” The timber used to supply domestic demand comes from the same small range of tree species also used by large-scale logging companies for the export market, but it is not kiln dried, it is roughly cut and only follows broad dimensional standards. Although demand is high now, further research is needed to determine what might happen if farmers negotiated better prices for their timber, how elastic demand would be or how price increases might affect demand for particular tree species and the preservation of their natural diversity. The study by Robiglio, Lescuyer and Cerutti provides a detailed analysis of timber stocks and timber harvesting according to different land uses within the region’s shifting cultivation system. Their findings indicate that most of the trees are cut from annual crop fields (43%) and fallows (30.5%), with a smaller proportion (13%) coming from cocoa agroforests. Central Cameroon is a major region for cocoa production, which is expanding due to rising cocoa prices and government investments aimed at doubling national production by 2015. The types and abundance of trees also vary by land use: shade trees are more prevalent in cocoa agroforests, and multiple-use trees – those that can supply food, fuel, fabric and more – dominate in fallow and agricultural areas. “The study confirms how smallholders manage different systems with multiple livelihood strategies and sources of income,” Robiglio said. “It points to the importance of not looking at logging and timber management through a sectorial approach, but rather understanding how the agricultural and timber systems are integrated.” Ninety percent of the farmers interviewed for the study reported a decline in the number of trees. This trend is likely to accelerate with agricultural expansion and intensification, the introduction of crops that require more sunlight and the wider use of chainsaws to clear land. Nevertheless, the researchers found that farmers are interested in planting and managing trees on deforested land. “The situation is ripe for strategies that could further encourage farmers to shift from opportunistic exploitation to a type of timber management that could sustain their livelihoods on the long term,” said Cerutti. Tree planting and enrichment schemes could boost on-farm timber production and help avert deforestation, the authors suggest – but this would mean giving farmers better access to technologies such as improved seed, and teaching them how to produce seedlings for high-demand species or to domesticate local ones more effectively. New policy options also are needed to overcome the barriers to on-farm timber production. “Trees take many years to reach maturity, so farmers are reluctant to invest in them if they’re not sure they’ll be able to claim the benefits,” Cerutti said. If farmers are to get the most from their forest resources, regulations must cross the boundary between the forestry and agricultural sectors to address land tenure, logging rights and control over tree resources, the researchers argue. Given the Cameroonian government’s strong support for agricultural development, measures to combine agriculture and timber production could build on the close association between small-scale logging and agricultural land use. “Smallholder farmers should be targeted as the main actors in an integrated system that is not only more sustainable but could also be useful for informing on-farm timber initiatives in other countries,” Robiglio said. Continue reading
