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8 September 2009
REDD will fail with the current definition of “forest”
Article by: Chris Lang
Source: REDD-Monitor

The photograph on the left was taken by Global Witness in 2006. It shows an area of illegal logging inside the Bokum Sakor National Park in Cambodia. Here’s the problem: What area should be delineated as forest? You might think that’s easy. The area covered in trees is forest. Isn’t it? Yes, obviously. But according to the UNFCCC’s definition of forests, the logged over area is also forest. The UN describes this sort of destruction as “areas normally forming part of the forest area which are temporarily unstocked as a result of human intervention”. In the looking glass world of the UNFCCC, then, a clearcut is a forest. And a monoculture eucalyptus plantation is also a forest. A recent report in Conservation Letters focusses on the weak definitions of “forest” and “forest degradation” in the global climate change agreements. The authors, Nophea Sasaki (of Harvard University and the University of Hyogo) and Francis Putz (of the University of Florida) argue that under the current definitions, “great quantities of carbon and other environmental values will be lost when natural forests are severely degraded or replaced by plantations but technically remain ‘forests.’” They explain that their concern is that “while forest degradation is recognized as a major problem, it is mostly being disregarded by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) partially because of the way they define ‘forest’.” Below are the current definitions of “forest”, “deforestation”, “forest management”, “reforestation” and “afforestation” as agreed under the UNFCCC. (Source: Annex to decision 16/CMP.1, Land use, land-use change and forestry.) “Forest degradation” is not included, for the simple reason that there is no agreed definition. “Lack of a universally agreed-upon definition of forest degradation will cause complications when REDD projects are implemented,” Sasaki and Putz note, with academic understatement. “Negotiations on this agreement are scheduled to be completed by December 2009, which means that discussions about the broader issue of defining forests and debates over the inclusion of forest degradation need to be resolved very soon,” Sasaki and Putz write. As REDD-Monitor has previously pointed out, the way that forests are defined is crucial to whether REDD helps preserve or destroy forests. Without a definition of forests that differentiates between forests and industrial tree plantations, REDD will spell disaster.

See this article at : http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/09/08/redd-will-fail-with-the-current-definition-of-forest/

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