Safeguarding the Green Shields!

Forests are generally referred to as natural sinks for carbon dioxide. They are a bulwark against increased emissions. Forests also provide ecological benefits such as better water retention in soils, and act as natural windbreakers against fierce storms. They protect the habitat of many critical species and offer an important source of livelihood for many communities. Forests therefore, offer both mitigation and adaptation benefits, which suggests that forest protection and afforestation should be of utmost importance for all governments and private corporations. This entails imaginative public policies including sustainable development practices in agriculture and growing timber, enforcement of illegal deforestation, involvement of the community in protecting and policing the forest (the Joint Forest Management programme in India of 1990 is a good example) and the involvement of rich nations and multilateral agencies in financing such measures around the world.

Restoration & Anti-deforestation Initiatives

In recent history, large tracts of forests were cut down by the developed countries of Europe and the US between the 17th and 20th centuries, for their development purposes. These included timber for railway sleepers as well as clearing the forest for creating pastures, agricultural fields or space for highways and railways. Forests continue to be cut down in developing countries for the same purposes. Paul Hawken in his book Drawdown notes that African and Asian countries, which are racked by civil wars, continue to witness massive deforestation, which has not only led to large greenhouse gas emissions but also a loss in biodiversity, soil erosion and desertification. He also quotes a World Wildlife Fund study, which says that 48 football fields worth of forests are lost every minute even today.

Even the rich tropical and temperate forests are facing pressure from a mix of agricultural push, illegal forest cutting and development pressure. On the other hand, a number of initiatives to control deforestation have also been taken across the world. In tropical forests, some such initiatives are the Amazon Conservation Project in Brazil, which has succeeded in pushing back deforestation as well as restoring degraded forests. The success can be attributed to the strong enforcement and monitoring by the government as well as financial (in Norway) and technical (in Germany) support by various countries. Temperate forests, which are present in the northern hemisphere, have seen regeneration over the last century because of improved forest management as well as shift to timber imports rather than the dependence on forests. Furthermore, most of the temperate forests were already targeted till the 19th century when Europe and the US were developing, as mentioned above. With the benefit of hindsight as well as a greater appreciation of the importance of forests, temperate forests saw improved coverage, higher biomass density and greater biodiversity, making them a net-carbon sink today.

Other noteworthy global initiatives have been the Bonn Challenge of 2011, which set a target to restore 150 million hectares of forest by 2020; the New York Declaration of Forests in 2014, which set a target of restoring 350 million hectares globally by 2030; AFR100, the African initiative to restore more than 100 million hectares of forest by 2030; and the Brazilian initiatives referred to above. Paul Hawken estimates that if 350 million hectares of forest are restored by 2030, they would remove 12 to 33 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the air.

The mitigation benefits of preventing deforestation and restoring forests are obvious: reduced carbon emissions and increased carbon sequestration as trees grow and soils improve. At the same time, adaptation benefits also accrue, such as soil conservation, food, fuel and fodder for the indigenous communities, improved biodiversity etc. Mitigation and adaptation benefits therefore go hand in hand, more so because communities and peoples continue to have an interaction with the forests.

Conclusion

Controlling deforestation and restoring forests will not only have mitigation benefits (curbing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring carbon sequestration) but also lead to other benefits as mentioned above. These benefits would not only help the community in terms of food, fuel and fodder, but also ensure an orderly growth of the forest and improved biodiversity. These efforts, however, require the involvement of the government and the people, as well as financial assistance from global/multilateral agencies.

The writer is the Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Cooperation, Government of West Bengal