World’s forests lose 40% of their greenhouse absorbing capacity in just 20 years
Australian Media has started the intial reaction FOE’s Forest Climate
Report that we made available / reported about last week here.
http://forestpolicyresearch.com/2009/01/10/friends-earth-report-forests-climate/
–Editor, Forest Policy Research
The capacity of the world’s forests to soak up greenhouse gases has
dropped by 40 per cent in the past 20 years, according to a new
report. Friends of the Earth International says climate change is
severely disrupting forest eco-systems, with ”forests as a whole”
predicted to lose their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon if
climate changes forces a 2-degree rise in average temperatures. It
warns the world’s forests are being cleared at a rate of 7.3million
hectares a year, with loss of tropical forests increasing at a rate of
more than 25 per cent.
The organisation, which is the world’s biggest
environmental network with 6000 member groups, has called for an end
to logging of all the world’s old growth forests, given their critical
role in regulating the Earth’s climate. ”The destruction of forests
is likely to cause significant changes to weather and climate, both
regionally and globally, and thus to ecosystems and food production,”
it says. The report comes as anti-logging activists in Tasmania
clashed with police yesterday over state Government plans to log 169ha
of old growth temperate rainforest in the upper Florentine valley in
southern Tasmania. Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said the global
report was ”yet another huge warning” to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
that protecting old growth forests was ”pivotal to any serious plan
to stem climate change”. Senator Brown said despite Federal
Government claims that ”land clearing was under control”, it
remained a significant contributor to Australia’s greenhouse
emissions. He said data showed the volume of forests logged and burned
across eastern Australia had increased in recent years. Meanwhile, the
Friends of the Earth Australia spokesman Cam Walker said recently
Australia’s land clearing rates had only dropped by just 3 per cent in
the past 10 years. ”There was an assumption that if Queensland got
its clearing rates under control that would solve the issue, but other
states have since emerged as major problems mainly Tasmania, Victoria,
NSW and the Northern Territory. There are still huge problems with
illegal land clearing, ” Mr Walker said. Before the 2007 election,
Labor had promised to introduce national standards and guidelines for
land clearing, and to improve compliance and monitoring of clearing,
he said. ”But we have seen little movement in this direction from the
Rudd Government.” A spokesman for Federal Environment Minister Peter
Garrett said ”issues associated with land clearing” would be
considered in a number of government reviews of environmental laws and
policies, including reviews of the Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Act, the national biodiversity strategy and native
vegetation policies. The executive director of the Australian National
University’s climate change institute, Professor Will Steffen, said it
was critical for Australia ”to retain as many old growth forests as
possible”. ”If you map the value of ecosystem services across
Australia, you’d find old growth forests were among the most
valuable.” The Friends of the Earth report, ”Forests In A Changing
Climate”, warns hotter temperatures are causing widespread forest
dieback, with recent studies estimating 55 per cent of the Amazon
rainforest could die off within 20 years, releasing up to 26 billion
tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. The US could also lose 11 per
cent of its forests. The report calls for the United Nations to
exclude timber plantations such as palm oil from global emissions
trading schemes, arguing they are a major driver of global forest
loss. ”Replacing old growth forests with plantations is not an
option. At best, tree plantations store just 20per cent of the carbon
that old-growth forests lock away,” the report says.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/worlds-forests-gasping-for-air/1405336.aspx
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