WHRC releases 4 key reports(ards and greater institutional capacity ...)

Date:12/2/2007

ards, and greater institutional capacity to govern the vast Amazon forest region. More than 90 percent of the opportunity costs of forest maintenance could be compensated for a per-ton carbon value of $3, while actually achieving the reduction would be much cheaper: about $1.2 per ton. In the proposed program, all of the regions forest people would double their incomes, and $10 to 80 million per year in fire-related damages would be avoided. These results show that REDD programs will bring substantial benefits to tropical countries that need to be included in evaluations of the economics. For the first time, we have fundamental information and analyses to demonstrate that it is feasible to end carbon emissions from deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia, contributing to climate change mitigation and forest conservation while distributing benefits for local people, according to Paulo Moutinho, a scientist from IPAM. He adds, Brazilian society is ready and waiting to adopt a REDD program.

In Reducing CO2 emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, prepared by the WHRC, a very different forest is analyzed. CO2 emissions from the DRC are low and driven primarily by small-scale farmers, but emissions could escalate rapidly in the future as political stability opens the door to foreign investments and migration. A nationwide assessment of forest carbon stocks and farm family density provides the basis for preliminary estimates of the costs of cutting deforestation by half. When semi-subsistence farmers clear a half-hectare of forest each year to grow the crops that sustain their families, the costs of slowing deforestation must provide for alternative incomes. It will be more expensive to slow emissions from the DRC than from the Brazilian Amazon. However, investments in the management of the timber concession program could provide an important economic incentive to maintain forests standing while generating impo
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Contact: Elizabeth Braun ebraun@whrc.org 508-540-9900 Woods Hole Research Center Source:Eurekalert

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