Growing benefits from forest carbon projects

Forests have a significant role within climate change, and their crucial role in climate change

mitigation and adaptation. It has a potential source of GHG, releasing CO₂ emissions; they also have great potential as sinks, removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, converting it to carbon, which is stored as biomass. Forests as a source of emissions aggravate climate change, while forests as a sink contribute to climate change mitigation. Forests are also sensitive to the effects of changes in temperature, precipitation and seasonal patterns, so their ecosystems are vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. 

Forests provide a range of ecosystems services, which today have little direct cash - generating value, but do have significant indirect economic value to people`s livelihoods. The lack of a cash compensation for the benefits from ecosystem services leads to forest degradation and deforestation, often with disastrous environmental and social effects. Conversely, income from payments for ecosystem services, when appropriately structured, leads to the preservation and regeneration of forest resources. Carbon sequestration in forest systems is rapidly becoming the primary ecosystem service for which a sizeable market is emerging. A forest carbon credit represents either the removal of carbon from the atmosphere and storage in the form of biomass (e.g. wood and long – lived wood products). By combining carbon credits with poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation, other social co - benefits and non - carbon ecosystem functions are economically rewarded. The ecosystem service can be monetized as carbon credits, which can form a significant additional income stream. This income could make forestry community more viable in combining forest conservation and biodiversity with poverty reduction and environmental governance.

http://www.earthtimes.org/going-green/timber-plantations-forests/1683/

However, through the products and environmental services they provide, forests also help to make human populations less vulnerable to the damaging effects of climate change, and are therefore important in adaptation strategies, such as:

• The sustainable use of timber and non-timber forest products for alternative livelihoods;

• On-farm plantations for protection of watercourses and provision of shade and dry season fodder for livestock, and;

• Maintenance of biodiversity corridors as shifting seasonal patterns cause wildlife habitats to change. 

So there are many sound reasons why forests have become increasingly linked with efforts to address climate change over recent years.

Photo by worldwildlife.org

Growing or establishing forests can help to combat climate change through absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere, storing carbon in various carbon pools, and, once they leave the forest, in harvested wood products. Forest owners and managers can accelerate this process by managing and conserving existing forest areas, or by creating new ones. A carbon offset projects would be a strong step forward for the preservation of forest resources, forestry projects and the livelihood of the people.

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