What Role For Tropical Forests In Climate Change Mitigation

Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major international effort over the next five years to reverse tropical deforestation. Why Forests? Why Now? synthesizes the latest evidence on the importance of tropical forests in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in climate change and development and to readers already familiar with the problem of deforestation. It makes the case to decisionmakers in rich countries that rewarding developing countries for protecting their forests is urgent, affordable, and achievable.

With an increasing role of tropical forests supporting a range of ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, water regulation, soil conservation, timber, non-timber forest products, carbon sequestration, and climate change mitigation, the importance of forest resources management has become very crucial. The tropical forests of Indochina countries are rich in biodiversity and carbon density, and thus are significant from social, ecological, political and economic aspects. These forests provide essential livelihoods to the local and indigenous people. Rapid economic growth, agriculture expansion, illegal logging, population growth, and urbanisation have been reported as major contributors to almost all cases of deforestation. Due to rapid development, forest resources are at a great risk. The FRA 2010 report shows that deforestation caused a loss of about 13 million hectares of tropical forests per year from the year 2000 to 2010. Therefore, there is an urgent need for better management of these resources. This book partially contributes towards climate change mitigation by implementing the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism. To mitigate climate change, most present studies are now concentrated on afforestation, reforestation and reducing deforestation and degradation. This book is focused on the application of multi-sensor remote sensing techniques to manage Cambodian forests for the effective implementation of the REDD+ mechanism. In this context, it is important to obtain reliable and consistent information of (a) forest cover, (b) deforestation, and (c) forest biomass to estimate CO2 emissions for the improvement of national carbon accounting. Additionally, this information will also be used for the development of the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system and for the management of forest resources to support sustainable forest management. Current knowledge is very limited with regard to the MRV system for REDD+ mechanism implementation. This book demonstrates the use of multi-sensor remote sensing techniques to manage the forest resources more sustainably. Further, it includes a concept on how precisely we can measure various forest parameters to minimise the uncertainty and to validate the results based on field data. The study is very much interdisciplinary in nature. It integrates core remote sensing techniques with the socio-economic angle of the REDD+ mechanism. It emphasises on remote sensing as a technique for ensuring the MRV of REDD+ initiatives, taking into consideration its cost effectiveness in implementation.

The lntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently summarized the state ofthe art in research on climate change (Climate Change 1995). The most up to date research findings have been divided into three volumes: • the Science ofClimate Change (working group I), • the Impacts, Adaption and Mitigation of Climate Change (working group II), and • the Economic and Social Dimensions ofClimate Change (working group III) There is a general consensus that a serious change in climate can only be avoided if the future emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced considerably from the business as usual projection and if at the same time the natural sinks for greenhouse gases, in particular that of CO , are maintained at the present level or 2 preferrably increased. Forests, forestry and forestry industry are important parts of the global carbon cycle and therefore they are also part of the mitigation potentials in at least a threefold way: 1. During the time period between 1980 and 1989 there was a net emission of CO from changes in tropical land use (mostly tropical deforestation) of 2 1. 6 +/- 1 GtC/a, but at the same time it was estimated that the forests in the northem hemisphere have taken up 0. 5 +/- 0. 5 GtC/a and additionally other terrestrial sinks (including tropical forests where no clearing took place) have been a carbon sink ofthe order of l. 3 +/- l.

The idea that nature provides services to people is one of the most powerful concepts to have emerged over the last two decades. It is shaping our understanding of the role that biodiverse ecosystems play in the environment and their benefits for humankind. As a result, there is a growing interest in operational and methodological issues surrounding ecosystem services amongst environmental managers, and many institutions are now developing teaching programmes to equip the next generation with the skills needed to apply the concepts more effectively. This handbook provides a comprehensive reference text on ecosystem services, integrating natural and social science (including economics). Collectively the chapters, written by the world's leading authorities, demonstrate the importance of biodiversity for people, policy and practice. They also show how the value of ecosystems to society can be expressed in monetary and non-monetary terms, so that the environment can be better taken into account in decision making. The significance of the ecosystem service paradigm is that it helps us redefine and better communicate the relationships between people and nature. It is shown how these are essential to resolving challenges such as sustainable development and poverty reduction, and the creation of a green economy in developing and developed world contexts.