United Nations Radio

OP: UP THEME 5 SECS, FADE UNDER AND HOLD

NARRATOR: In this programme as part of our continuing series on climate change, UN Radio looks at the impact of forest cover and deforestation.

OP: UP THEME, FADE UNDER AND OUT ON CUE

NARRATOR: Forests are the most significant carbon reservoir, playing an invaluable role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Forests contain more than 75% of all carbon stored in vegetation.
Globally, forests are a net sink - meaning they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they emit. However, deforestation changes that.

VOX: Deforestation is the clearance of naturally occurring forests by the processes of people's logging and/or burning of trees in a forested area. Every year, more than 15 million hectares of tropical forest - an area larger than the state of New York - are cut down, releasing millions of tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

NARRATOR: Without action now, many of the world's tropical forests will be lost by this century's end, according to Peter Minang, a senior scientist with the World Agri-forestry Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.

TAPE: Currently, 18-20 percent of all emissions in the world come from deforestation and forest degradation, so that's quite significant.

NARRATOR: Deforestation leads directly to carbon emissions in the same manner as a coal-fired power plant or any other emission source. There is a broad and general consensus that the battle on climate change can't be won unless we defeat deforestation and forest degradation: a view that's constantly pushed by President Bharrat Jagdeo of the South American country of Guyana.

TAPE: Most people are aware of the importance of forests to the world and from a biodiversity prospective but also as an important abatement solution for climate change.

NARRATOR: Tropical forests are disappearing rapidly - a process that accounts for some 17% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to a policy brief by the Nicolas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University in the United States,.
The Institute argues that saving tropical forests thus represents a significant cost-effective, timely and multiple-benefit opportunity for the international community in the fight against climate change. Lydia Orlander is Director of the Ecosystem Services Programme at the Nicholas Institute.

TAPE: There's been a number of efforts over the years to try to slow deforestation and so far those haven't been extremely effective, but with these new efforts moving forward for global climate policies and global climate treaties there's an effort to find ways to shift resources to bring really bring significant resources to developing countries, tropical countries, to help reduce deforestation.

NARRATOR: Tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of 5% every decade as a result of agricultural, timber, and road expansion. And by 2050, the Amazon in Brazil will be gone. Brazil lost nearly 150,000 square kilometers of forest- an area larger than Greece - and since 1970, over 600,000 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. However, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his country is taking action.

TAPE: We have approved a National Climate Change Plan that includes an 80% cut in deforestation of the Amazon by 2020. We will reduce C02 emissions by 4.8 billion tons, more than the sum-total of all developed country commitments. In 2009, we can already show the lowest deforestation rate in 20 years.

NARRATOR: The government has credited aggressive monitoring and the enforcment of conservation measures. But developing countries complain of forest conservation measures being imposed on them. According to the Minister of Forest Economy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Henry Jumbo, the regional effort involved in that management is enormous.

TAPE: The countries of the Congo Basin, since 1989 have agreed to manage the forestry eco-system at the regional level, and, initially, we developed a plan, a $2billion plan, over ten years that covered ten countries, but $2 billion is a difficult sum to amass. We have not amassed that money.

NARRATOR: Among those countries in the Congo Basin are Gabon, Cameroon, Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo-DRC. However, they say these measures impact their communities who live on the forests. Kevin Conrad is the special envoy on climate change for Papua New Guinea.

TAPE: So, if we are going to defeat deforestation, we have to create an alternative livelihood, and investment in alternative livelihoods costs money.

NARRATOR: Reducing deforestation by 25% will save more than three million hectares of tropical rainforest and result in the concomitant reduction in carbon emissions. Developing countries are pushing an initiative called REDD -a mechanism for compensating states for "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation". Guyana's President Bharat Jagdeo describes it as the most efficient and inexpensive plan.

TAPE: REDD or preserving forests can deliver on most immediate results unlike some of the solutions that are being offered - carbon caption storage will take time to develop, renewable energy will take time to develop at scale and deploy.

NARRATOR: But it requires funding.

TAPE: We have to get the adequate financing to fund REDD because many countries are expending political capital. The people who sit at this table, we have low per capita GDP. We all have poor people, and we are saying we are prepared to lock our forest away for a global good in exchange for resources to develop alternatives to give people an alternative life style to ensure that our countries prosper whilst we're contributing to a global solution.

NARRATOR: It's a point echoed by the Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea. Prime minister Michael Somare says it's time developed nations step up to the plate.

TAPE: Our people live in the rural areas and they need to have an income to pay for their schools, to pay for their health services, to pay for their infra-structural development, the only means that they can get their money into their respective countries is by felling of forests. Now, if the world wants us to conserve on their behalf, then they have to come good with this financial support for the developing countries.

NARRATOR: Developing countries say REDD is not moving forward it was not included in the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, and which is to be replaced by the Copenhagen agreement for the current dilemma. They say Kyoto did not take into account the ecological role of forests and did not provide for financially sustaining forests. Kevin Conrad is the special envoy for the environment and climate change and an expert on REDD.

TAPE: We have to value forests more for being alive and standing because presently, we only value them when they are dead. We only value them when they are cut down and the wood is sold. We only value them when the land is cleared and used for agriculture.

NARRATOR: So as the clock continues to tick towards Copenhagen, developing countries are asking numerous questions. Among them: are developed countries serious?

TAPE: Are we serious about climate change? Are we serious about conserving forests? And if so, can we mobilize the necessary capital to properly value forests and help developing countries transition to sustainable livelihoods?

NARRATOR: Concern over the limited time to conclude protracted negotiations before Copenhagen is best summed up by Guyana's President Bharat Jagdeo.

TAPE: There is urgency. We have to get forest and REDD PLUS included in prominently in the Copenhagen Agreement.

OP: THEME TO TIME.

Producer: Donn Bobb
duration: 8'59"