July 2007
Australia will establish a new
global system to monitor changes in forest cover and forest carbon levels
as part of its A$200 million Global Initiative on Forests and Climate,
government officials announced today.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer, and Environment and Water
Resources Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced the initiative at a High
Level Meeting on Forests and Climate taking place in Sydney. Participants
from more than 65 countries, along with several hundred delegates from
international, environmental and business organizations are attending the
three day meeting.
"The ability to measure and monitor changes in forest cover is critical to
international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing
global deforestation and supporting sustainable forest management," Downer
said.
"Australia is inviting partner countries to work with us to link national,
regional, and international systems to create a truly global system to
monitor forest cover and carbon levels," he said.
Trees and other plants take up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere as they grow, through the process of photosynthesis. This
decreases the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and helps
reduce the greenhouse effect.
The new Global Carbon Monitoring System will be supported by remote
sensing satellite monitoring technology and carbon accounting activities
on the ground.
Australia plans to build satellite receiving stations to help countries in
the Asia Pacific region better monitor their forest cover and carbon.
"By providing better access to historical data and providing timely access
to new data, it will support countries' efforts to reduce emissions from
deforestation."
Minister Turnbull said Australia has much to offer other countries. "Our
world-leading National Carbon Accounting System has underpinned
Australia's success in reducing land clearing and the associated
greenhouse gas emissions," Turnbull said.
"In 1990, greenhouse gas emissions in Australia from deforestation were
129 million tonnes. These are projected to fall by 65 percent by 2010,"
the minister said. "We have also planted more than 1.1 million hectares of
new forests, which by 2010 will remove 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere each year."
In addition, Australia will contribute A$11.7 million (US$10 million) to
the World Bank's new Global Forest Alliance to help protect the world's
remaining great forests from deforestation and to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, the ministers said.
Australia is the first country to contribute to the new alliance, and the
funds will come out of the $200 million Global Initiative on Forests and
Climate.
Another A$10 million will come out of the Global Initiative fund to
support efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and
promote sustainable forest management in Indonesia, the ministers
announced.
"This package will help Indonesia develop pilot projects to demonstrate
the effectiveness of reducing deforestation; improve local forestry
governance; and prevent, monitor and suppress peatland fires, including by
training Indonesia's fire fighters and fire management," Downer said.
The funds will help support Indonesia's move to develop a forest
monitoring and assessment system to generate better forest sector data.
Indonesia's peat lands are made up of undecomposed plant materials and
store large quantities of carbon. As a result, fires in peat lands set to
clear the land for agriculture, release large amounts of greenhouse gases.
"Australia's assistance will help Indonesian communities reduce forest
destruction and encourage sustainable use of forests," Turnbull said.
"Tackling deforestation is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce
greenhouse emissions in the short term. Together with the World Bank we
aim to set the stage for a long term, sustainable approach to addressing
deforestation," the ministers said.
"Global deforestation is a serious issue that impacts on climate change,
local economies, and the environment. Every day, more than 70,000 football
fields of forest are removed globally – this is around 1.6 billion trees
each year. This is a situation we can and must reverse quickly and this
Initiative will help us do so," Turnbull said.
Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown today called on Turnbull to apply his
planned satellite watch for clearcut logging at home.
"Mr. Turnbull says 'it is no good' protecting one valley if loggers are
clearfelling the valley next door. Well, replace 'valley' with 'island.'
It is no good preventing clearfelling on Lombok if they are clearfelling
Tasmania," said Senator Brown, who represents Tasmania in the Australian
Parliament.
"His satellite watch would have picked up the recent illegal clearfelling
of a forest reserve in the Arve valley of Tasmania," said Brown. "It would
pick up extensive ecological destruction in East Gippsland and Tasmania."
"The minister has two standards," Brown sniped. "He would be better to
follow the lead of New Zealand where all clearfelling of old growth forest
has stopped."
Humane Society International, based in Sydney, has been working with
nongovernmental organizations to lobby the Australian government to ensure
that "avoided deforestation," is included in any carbon emissions trading
system developed for Australia.
The NGOs want to ensure forests that are left standing are counted as part
of any plan to combat climate change that Australia may seek to join
regionally or internationally.
NGOs hope the idea will be taken up seriously by the United Nations
climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia in December.
Encouraging countries to preserve existing forests with financial
incentives would ensure more trees to soak up greenhouse gases, and it
also would be "a big bonus" for biodiversity conservation, the IUCN-World
Conservation Union said last week.
The idea of rewarding avoided deforestation was discussed as part of a
joint initiative by IUCN and the UN Environment Programme to make
beneficiaries of ecosystem services, such as the absorption of carbon by
forests, pay for their sustained provision.
Under the proposal, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation
Degradation, REDD, a cutback in forest loss would become a new option for
complying with international climate change regulations.
It also would mean that countries reducing deforestation could receive
carbon credits, which are now emerging as a global market.
Financial rewards for emissions reductions may motivate countries to keep
their forests, rather than clearing them for other land uses such as
agriculture, proponents say.
The idea is not without its problems, the IUCN points out. There is a the
risk that the scheme might move the problem of deforestation elsewhere in
the world to places where it would still be more financially viable to
clear forests or where countries are not capable of enforcing compliance
with REDD policy.
There is also concern over how the money paid to governments would trickle
down to the local level and influence the livelihood decisions of people
who live in and depend upon forests.
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