Forestry

Articles Tagged with: Forestry

22 November, 2009

Logging Trucks by Night

One year after cessation of logging in Ulu Segama Malua, timber is still being trucked out of this area under cover of darkness.

Late in 2008 it was common to pass 30 or more fully laden logging trucks during the 2-3 hour journey to Danum Valley Field Centre or Borneo Rainforest Lodge.

I interpreted this glut as the last binge before the forests in this part of the Yayasan Sabah concession are converted to more sustainable use such as eco-tourism, scientific research or ecosystem services.

Now thankfully most tourism operators, researchers and responsible forest managers are spared the frustrating sight of their future income security disappearing overnight.

These are the majority who travel by day. By night it is different. On the evening of 16th November we passed 15 logging trucks on our way out from Borneo Rainforest Lodge. I was assured by my driver and companions that this is a common sight.

I am sure that the timber originates from legitimate logging contracts, possibly from further inside the concession than the Ulu Segama area? What attracted my attention was the lack of a reasonable explanation for why it has become necessary to move the logs at night.

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13 July, 2009

Biomimicry

At last I get around to reading Biomimicry and it has helped me to understand the balance between the natural and the man-made.

Browsing Mongabay the other day I came upon this article which discussed the conflict between environmentalists and the timber industry in Tasmania. The piece was structured around the views of those who see tasmanian forests as an exploitative resource, those that think it should remain untouched and a minority who think it could be both.

This got me wondering where I would place myself on this spectrum. Firmly towards the ‘untouched’ end I thought.

A few days later I was reading about polyculture agriculture in Janine Benyus’ book – Biomimicry. On the one hand is conventional agriculture that is not sustainable because it looses soil and requires unsustainable inputs. On the other is a sustainable ideal that won’t feed us. In between lies an agriculture that mimics a natural ecosystem and provides food.

I realised that forestry is agriculture and that if we tried to mimic a natural ecosystem we might see more bio-diverse plantations with lower fossil fuel imputs and less environmentally harmfull outputs.

I revised my position on the spectrum a little closer to the centre.

The impetus to read Biomimicry came from a lecture on the subject organised by the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM). At that lecture I heard Neil Thomas of Atelier 1 discussing how their projects mimic nature, Andrew Grant of Grant Associates showing us his fantastic supertrees set in an artificial landscape and finally the eclectic work of Meejin Yoon & Eric Howeler of MY Studio which included what they describe as super-natural landscapes.

At the end of the talk I asked the speakers whether they thought that this is the future for our planet [artificial landscapes and imitations of nature]?

The PAM Master of Ceremonies said yes, we have to use technology to get us out of the mess we’re in.

Andrew Grant said that he thought that in urban areas, yes this was the answer but that there was still space for true nature.

Meejin Yoon said yes but cautioned that we must remember that we can never do better than nature.

I could see in Andrew’s and Meejin’s answers the middle ground between an artificial fix (biomimetic or otherwise) to environmental problems and the alternative for a natural fix implicit in my question.

Biomimicry is an optimistic and inspirational book which I hope will not be misinterpreted to mean that natural systems can be replaced by the artificial.

The message of the book seems to be (I haven’t finished reading it yet) that we can use biomimicry to greatly improve the life-friendliness of the things we do. With this as our motivation and a humble respect for nature as our check, I can see the case for mimicking nature in the above examples of forestry, agriculture, building and many more.

If you see me championing the cause for forests and wild places remaining as wild and natural as possible, it’ll be because I see general consensus moving towards the other end of the spectrum.

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An excellent rant against geo-engineering and why we should use natural rather than man-made systems to restore the biosphere can be found here on Ecological Internet

26 February, 2009

Additionality

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and carbon credits sound like a good idea but I’m not sure how much they benefit rainforest conservation.

Behind my suspicion lies a concept that I have been aware of for a while but only recently learned that it has a name – ‘additionality’.

It’s a new jargon term which hasn’t yet made it into the dictionary. In understanding what it means I was lucky to meet a chap called Mike Packer who patiently and concisely explained things to me.

Mike is the founder of a company called ArborCarb which specialises in ecosystem services certification so he should know about these things.

By Mike’s definition; additionality in the context of carbon finance is “when the carbon benefits of the project would not have happened if the project had not been implemented”.

In other words, carbon credits are relative to the ‘business as usual’ scenario.

Perverse Carbon Credits

If business as usual is conventional logging, then carbon emissions could be reduced, for example by switching to FSC certified logging. In the world of carbon finance, this reduction of potential emissions can be converted into a carbon credit for sale on international markets.

Although this helps make reduced impact logging more viable, it also creates the absurd possibility of carbon credits for logging primary forest.

On the other hand, additionality fails to provide economic incentive for rainforest conservation. If business as usual is conserving primary rainforests, then no carbon benefits can happen by sticking with rainforest conservation.

This defeats the purpose of PES if you consider that this purpose is to make trees worth more alive than dead. Intact ecosystems rather than degraded ones.

The only way that the current carbon market can value living trees is through Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Additionality is provided here because business as usual is deforestation or degradation.

This point is picked up in an article by Katoomba Group which says “Some argue that countries with low rates of deforestation should be rewarded to avoid creating a perverse incentive for these countries to increase deforestation in order to then qualify for REDD incentives. However, in order to maintain the environmental integrity of a REDD policy, credits can only be generated by additional reductions in emissions from deforestation, and these countries would have to be rewarded through other means.”

Biodiversity Conservation Certificates

Other ecosystem services may also be dependent on additionality. For example the Malua Biobank.

If this project did not go ahead the ‘business as usual’ scenario is leaving an area of degraded forest to recover naturally (over an unrealistic timeframe – economically) or converting it to plantation. By putting money into forest rehabilitation it is hoped that biodiversity can be restored more quickly – additionality.

The economic principles behind Malua Biobank are that investors will realise gains on the value of their certificates as biodiversity increases over time. This is still a voluntary market and sales are targeted mostly at companies that want to offset damage to ecosystems or simply want good environmental PR.

Of the criticisms of Malua Biobank:

One is that they are also planning to sell carbon certificates which may be seen by some as double selling the same resource.

Another is that it comes after a regime of environmentally disastrous logging practices. Third party investment in rehabilitation effectively excuses the logging companies from their obligation to pay the environmental cost of their operations.

The latter is also akin to double selling; you sell the logs, then you sell the biodiversity/carbon certificates for rehabilitation. Have your cake and eat it!

Scepticism about PES

My scepticism for PES, particulary carbon credits is that they don’t seem to provide enough incentive to avoid degrading the forest in the first place. Most are based on the assumption that deforestation or degradation has happened or is going to happen anyway.

I understand that this has been done in light of the reality of logging and plantations and the need to encourage these industries to be more sustainable. The result however could be losing sight of the fundamental principle of conserving forest for the benefit that it provides.

The baseline has been shifted so that PES are generated in relation to destruction rather than conservation.

The result of this baseline shift is a scenario in which a forest is being considered for REDD, which as we have seen relies on the additionality of avoiding deforestation in favour of conservation. Up steps FSC which says that in this case, “FSC Certification should be a prerequisite for a carbon finance initiative”.

Suddenly you have a forestry certificate when you should have an ‘avoided forestry’ or conservation certificate.

I think that the reason for this is that we lack the ability to verify the benefits of conservation.

The closest tool we have which can audit additionality, permanence and leakage in a forestry scenario is a system like FSC. It’s like trying to prune your roses with a chainsaw

Mike Packer is working on a complete ecosystem service certificate which offers hope of a more suitable tool which is not dependent on additionality. The pilot projects under discussion mostly involve rehabilitation of degraded or fragmented forest but I understand that once proven they could be applied to intact forests.

The ArborCarb certificate relies on science that identifies, evaluates and sells (to suitable customers) all of the services provided by an ecosystem. Significantly these certificates are not for sale as an offset product, which will help tackle the leakage problem. i.e. when land protected/rehabilitated in one area indirectly or directly causes degradation in another. The holistic approach also means that ecosystem services are less susceptible to double selling.

By removing the need to demonstrate additionality, the ArborCarb approach may be able to provide the ‘other means’ of rewarding countries with low rates of deforestation that I mentioned above.

Until we can achieve this I fear that it will be difficult to resist temptation; such as in Indonesia which this week reneged on a moratorium against planting oil palm on former peat swamp forest. Commentators see this as either a ploy to benefit industry ahead of elections or perhaps a ruse to increase potential earnings under future REDD projects. Or perhaps both?

The positive bit

Meanwhile most of the conservationists that I know support PES projects such as the Malua Biobank. They have chosen to be lenient on the history and controversy of Malua because the project represents an innovative experiment that may lead to a new model for engagement between industry and conservation.

‘At the very least even if the project only succeeds in putting a ring fence around 30,000ha of forest and prevents it’s conversion to plantation, then it will have been a success’ comments a friend of mine.

Sabah was at the vanguard of carbon finance 15years ago with the Infapro Project. Now it is pioneering biodiversity conservation certificates and could soon be leading the way in implementation of ecosystem services certificates which are not burdened with the tyranny of additionality.

More on ArborCarb at the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests

Logging Maliau Basin buffer zone

I have learned from several sources that the buffer zone to Maliau Basin is to be logged again. It’s unclear as to the extent of the logging but I’ve been told that it will affect the area around the access road, between the gate and the studies centre.

The Maliau Basin Conservation Area Management Plan allows for the buffer zone to be logged once more using reduced impact logging (RIL).

So far Yayasan Sabah (YS) have only formally implemented RIL on one small experimental plot near Danum Valley Conservation Area.

In the early days of logging in the Yayasan Sabah concession, much of the harvesting did have a reduced impact due to the highly selective nature of the extraction.

Latterly YS seem to have lost control over their contractors and we have witnessed virtual clear cutting. The Ulu Segama Malua area is a case in point. See my earlier post.

Clear cutting is more likely to occur in areas that have already been logged several times. This is because there are fewer large trees left to ‘select’. Without these large trees, a greater volume of smaller trees must be harvested in order for the forest reserve to be as profitable as it used to be.

Greed is overcoming sustainable forest management.

Despite these pressures, Yayasan Sabah has managed to keep most of it’s concession under natural forest cover to varying degrees. In other parts of the state much of the natural forest has now been replaced by plantation.

This conversion is starkly illustrated by the google earth image below which shows part of the southern boundary of the Yayasan Sabah Concession. Dark green natural forest above contrasts with ligther green plantation (mostly oil palm) below.

View Larger Map

Yayasan Sabah however is not immune to these commercial pressures. Most of their concession is still forest reserve because that is its legal land use zoning. The process of alienating state forest reserve into private agricultural land is a complex process, but not impossible

The google earth image below shows part of the YS concession, formerly designated forest reserve but now cleared for a 19,000ha softwood plantation.

View Larger Map

The buffer zone to Maliua Basin Conservation area is highly visible forest with high conservation value. This area supports one of the few remaining wild populations of the wild cattle known locally as tembadau.

Yayasan Sabah has been at the forefront of innovative forest management, starting in the 70’s when the logging was a low intensity, continued in the 90’s when they traded carbon offsets for forest regeneration and most recently, forest regeneration through the sale of biodiversity credits from the Malua Biobank.

The latter however came only after the environmental disaster at Ulu Segama Malua that I have mentioned.

Payments for ecosystem services (as carbon and biodiversity credits are known) is still in its infancy and heavily reliant on voluntary codes.

While governments, NGO’s and industry haggle over terms, the forest is still being cleared.

If forest is over exploited now it will become more expensive to regenerate in future, regardless of whether the investment comes from sustainable forestry or ecosystem services. In this case the only viable economic alternative may be conversion to plantation.

The google earth image below shows the distinctive caldera shaped Maliau Basin, picked out by the cloud clinging to its north eastern rim.

Maliau Basin is still connected by contiguous natural forest to other conservation areas such as Imbak and Danum, plus the remote jungles along the Kalimantan border known as The Heart of Borneo.

It is important to their viability as conservation areas that they remain connected.

View Larger Map

An Everyday Junglist surveying the Maliau Buffer zone that is to be logged.

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7 March, 2008

Environmentalism Schism

As a sometime environmentalist I often find myself joining email campaigns of the ‘save the whales’ variety, targeting careless corporations and evil industrialists. The Ecological Internet ‘Forest Liars’ campaign that I signed this morning was different though. It included in its many targets; household eco-warrior names such as WWF, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and Friends of the Earth.

Although I moderated the tone of the pre-composed text, I still felt slightly uncomfortable hitting the ‘send’ button. This is not the first email alert of this kind that I have received from Ecological Internet, but it is the first one that I have acted upon. In pondering my motivation for this mutinous act, it will help to look at the background of a couple of key issues.

Many of you will know about Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification; it is a mechanism designed to reduce the environmental impact of an extractive industry, in this case logging. It works by creating a brand by which consumers can recognise timber products which originated from sustainably managed forests. The key to its success is independent auditing and enforcement of approved forest management procedures and chain of custody of the subsequent product.

FSC certification can apply to plantations, logged forest and primary forest. The justification for applying FSC certification to primary forest is that it’s better than the business as usual of conventional logging

The gist of Ecological Internet’s campaign is that the Earth’s climate is in such dire straights that we cannot afford to loose the carbon sequestering service of any more primary / old growth forest, and yet the above mentioned household names are all condoning and even encouraging FSC certified logging of primary forests.

I am sympathetic to this cause because the claimed environmental benefits of FSC seem to be in danger of exceeding their true value. The environmental best practice benchmark has been moved from conservation to ‘sustainable’ logging. There is even a suggestion that FSC certified logging of primary forest should be eligible for carbon credits. I do not need scientific research to prove to me that extracting the large valuable trees from primary forest will result in a net increase in carbon emissions – the opposite of a carbon credit.

The Schism is equally evident in the debate on biofuels. Biofuel consumption is increasing, predicated on the belief that it can help reduce our carbon emissions by replacing traditional fossil fuels. In this case there is scientific evidence which proves that biofuel can actually result in greater carbon emissions than fossil fuels. This occurs when the biofuel feedstock is grown on land which was previously rainforest. The rub being that rainforest and the soil or peat that it grew from stored more carbon than subsequent oil palms, soy beans etc.

Thus, on the one hand, organisations like Biofuelwatch are arguing that many of the claimed environmental benefits of biofuel are unfounded and we should not rush to embrace them. On the other hand WWF maintains that the use of biofuels should be increased and the sustainability claims made more accountable by the use of assessment and enforcement mechanisms similar to FSC. In this case known as the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

Given that palm oil plantations are a fact (and a very economically compelling fact) it makes perfect sense to me to try to influence the behaviour of the industry by working with it rather than against it. FSC started from a similar understanding; that if logging is going to happen anyway, why not try to create an incentive to do it more sustainably. The incentive being that FSC certified timber can access more markets and possibly at premium price.

The demand for FSC and RSPO certified products is generated in part by campaigning organisations and I am encouraged that these campaigns seem to be influencing behaviour for the better. Of course there will be those who say that too little is being done too late but the risk that environmentalists face, is if they are too self-righteous and aggressive in their campaigns then the target industry will close their ears and minds and we will achieve nothing.

When I consulted a close friend on my conundrum she said that the best we can do is to encourage engagement between all parties. She used the metaphor that a lack of engagement between environmentalists and industrialists in certain parts of Sabah had resulted not only in fragmented points of view, but in a fragmented landscape.

If I dig deep into my motivation for hitting that send button, I come upon a dialogue to which I was privy between Biofuelwatch and WWF. Biofuelwatch had attempted to engage with WWF on the subject of WWF policy on bio-fuels. The tone of the Biofuelwatch correspondence was well reasoned and not confrontational or sensational, as is often the case with Ecological Internet. The response from WWF was I thought, rather haughty and refused to acknowledge that there was an issue which needed to be addressed at that time. End of dialogue. I still do not know whether they are addressing it. Clearly, Ecological Internet believes that they are not addressing the FSC issue either.

The root of the schism appear to be that, while certification can help to reduce the environmental impact of some sectors of the industry, it does little to restrain the continued logging of primary forest or the expansion of biofuel feedstock cultivation. So, we have moderate environmentalists taking a cooperative tone while more radical activists are pointing out that this diverts attention from the continuing destruction taking place on the front line.

Although I am not always aligned with the style of presentation of Ecological Internet’s arguments, their email campaigns appear to be effective. They also seem to be able to identify campaign targets which are unpalatable to many and yet essential if environmentalism is to continue provoke debate and change on the most relevant issues.

I worry that the Grand Daddies of environmentalism might be focusing too closely on their damage limitation campaigns – such as reducing the impact of logging – that they are loosing sight of the fundamental principles upon which their organisations were founded – such as the prevention of logging.

I am troubled by the fact that environmentalists are turning against each other to point this out and also feel slightly guilty that I have joined in this attack. I present this article in the hope that it can explain if not excuse my actions and perhaps even help to facilitate engagement. I’d prefer our campaigns and environment intact, not fragmented.

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