A new report recently warned of the rising trend of the ‘climatisation’ of forests. This reflects a global shift in political attention and financial support towards primarily valuing forests for their capacity as carbon sinks, diminishing their intrinsic role for ecological and social welfare.
The report’s lead author, Dr Constance McDermott, Land, Society and Governance programme lead at the Environmental Change Institute, and two environmental social scientist colleagues have discussed this further in an article in The Conversation.
In the article Dr McDermott, along with Dr Eric Mensah Kumeh, Postdoctoral Researcher and Dr Mark Hirons, Senior Researcher say forests are great carbon sinks – they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release. Globally, forests remove nearly all of the two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide that is currently being removed from the atmosphere every year.
These days, companies can buy “carbon credits” for the carbon that is stored in living forests and offset this against their own greenhouse gas emissions. International financiers estimate that by 2050, Africa could be selling US$1.5 trillion in carbon credits per year, mainly from its forests.
The researchers, who also work at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at the University of Oxford, say that buying and selling forest carbon as a commodity is dangerous if it is prioritised over the other environmental and social uses of forests. It could even result in environmental damage and the displacement of forest-dependent people. Dr Hirons said:
Interest in the role of forests for climate mitigation has grown significantly over the last year as debates about the role and impact of carbon markets have proliferated. This new report from International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) reviews changes in forest governance over the last 10 years. It highlights, amongst other things, the risks that focusing on forests purely for their carbon value sidelines their vital role in livelihoods and biodiversity.
Giving a greater voice and rights to people in and around forests is essential to ensuring governance initiatives supports both people and multiple environmental goals.”
Read more about the recent International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) report in the ECI news.
Read the article in full in The Conversation: Buying and selling forest carbon as a commodity is dangerous if it trumps other environmental and social uses