Search

In a time of increasing land enclosures sparked by large-scale environmental initiatives and agricultural expansion, this paper examines local and global contestations over the value of forest on an Indonesian forest frontier. Engaging with recent debates on carbon forestry, the paper problematises the emerging initiatives of ' Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' known as REDD+ in the province of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The paper argues that the general rush to implement REDD+ without intimate knowledge of the political landscape of resource struggle is in danger of generating new enclosures of land that may be easily appropriated by local elites, thus excluding less fortunate sections of local society. The paper shows how divergent interpretations of REDD+ are triggering land disputes, and how powerful actors readily appropriate REDD+ discourses as a tool to support divergent claims of land ownership. Government and villagers, through overlapping and contradictory engagements, negotiate REDD+ initiatives with global environmental actors and private plantation companies. The paper highlights the implications of these local realities for the successes of REDD+. The Kalimantan case highlights some of the dilemmas of carbon mitigation initiatives experienced in frontier regions throughout Southeast Asia, places that have become prime battlefronts of large-scale climate change initiatives and agrarian expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DEFORESTATION AND DEGRADATION ARE DIFFERENT PROCESSES Deforestation is the complete removal of the forest cover, while degradation is the reduction of a forest capacity to supply services (Parrotta et al., 2012), which can be caused by forest fires. For example, in their paper, the authors classify "disturbed forests" based on deforestation and not disturbance itself, selecting grid cells in which forest cover in 2000 was greater than 70% and the accumulated loss during 2001-2017 was greater than 65%. Climate regime shift and forest loss amplify fire in Amazonian forests. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the process for establishing a 'village agreement' using the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership ( KFCP) as a case study. REDD+ is designed as a 'performance-based' mechanism and requires a contractual agreement between the parties involved. Since its implementation will affect the life of forest-dependent communities, it is vital that villagers have sufficient ability to negotiate their interests during the agreement process. This paper investigates the degree of 'social learning' essential for developing actors' capacity to negotiate rules and interests with outsiders involved in the agreement process (between KFCP and the seven villages involved) and how this meshes with notions of 'participation'. It found that while 'social learning' occurred as a result of the well-designed participatory process conducted by KFCP, villagers' ability to secure their interests was influenced by a learning experience accumulated from their previous engagement with several development/conservation projects. This finding contributes to literature by emphasising how historical context plays a significant role in the success of present learning and the efficacy or otherwise of a contractual agreement. Therefore historical aspects should be taken into account in site selection and the design of future REDD+ projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Forests around the world are changing as a result of human activity. These changes have substantial impacts on the resilience of forests, possibly pushing them towards tipping points. 2. The objective of this Special Feature is to present research that fosters the understanding of forest resilience and potential tipping points under global change. This editorial summarizes the key findings of the seven papers in this Special Feature and puts them in the wider context of resilience thinking. 3. Synthesis. The contributions to this Special Feature show that resilience is a useful concept to understand ecosystem change but that we have to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms and feedback loops involved in forest resilience and potential tipping points. Finally, this Special Feature presents evidence about how resilience thinking is used to better understand and manage degraded forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of changing rationales and tactics among actors engaged in mobilising private finance for Indonesia's emergent Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation ( REDD+) programme. Despite limited flows of private finance so far, private sector actors have been responsible for a great deal of development and innovation in the forest carbon sector in Indonesia, and have thus played - and continue to play - an important part in shaping the country's REDD+ programme. Drawing on extended field research and interviews with key actors engaged with REDD+ in Indonesia, we identify a variety of private investor motivations, strategies and tactics, many of which depart considerably from the common understanding of REDD+ as avoided deforestation funded through carbon offsets. As non-state actors increasingly shape emerging REDD+ projects, they assume important roles as agents of environmental governance - working through a variety of private market and hybrid modes of forest/climate governance. We describe four general modes of engagement, centred around: investment in REDD+ verified emissions reductions; corporate social responsibility; sustainable commodities; and impact investment. The research thus contributes to an improved understanding of the nature of private REDD+ finance in Indonesia, and the implications, potential and limits of private, market-based climate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus ( REDD+) programme seeks to reshape the way we value, govern and interact with forests. Rather than managing forests according to interests in timber, conservation, land or livelihoods, REDD+ encourages forms of forest management that prioritise carbon. While international negotiations are shaping the rules of the programme, how it takes place on the ground will depend on its interpretation and implementation in different places. In this paper, we are interested in how the REDD+ Task Force ( Satgas REDD+), an ad hoc body formed by presidential decree to design and implement REDD+ readiness activities in Indonesia, has attempted to mainstream the programme from 2010 to 2013. We develop a governmentality approach to focus on how the Task Force sought to introduce REDD+ carbon rationalities to forest politics. Based on extended ethnographic research, we identify three strategies: adopting and promoting the carbon discourses circulating among global REDD+ communities; making carbon visible and governable through mapping technologies; and implementing participatory technologies to encourage pro- REDD+ subjectivities. In some ways, the Task Force has been successful in building awareness about forest carbon among forest stakeholders in Indonesia. National civil society organisations, in particular, appear to be supportive of REDD+; however, they emphasise 'co-benefits' framed as ' Beyond Carbon', informed by social and environmental justice. For others, however, forests remain sources of timber and land, and new strategies are required if REDD+ is to have substantial impacts on forest governance in Indonesia. The Task Force's efforts reveal the difficult and contested processes through which global climate change programmes come to be embedded in national arenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests are vital to the world's ecological, social, cultural and economic well-being yet sustainable provision of goods and services from forests is increasingly challenged by pressures such as growing demand for wood and other forest products, land conversion and degradation, and climate change. Intensively managed, highly productive forestry incorporating the most advanced methods for tree breeding, including the application of genetic engineering ( GE), has tremendous potential for producing more wood on less land. However, the deployment of GE trees in plantation forests is a controversial topic and concerns have been particularly expressed about potential harms to the environment. This paper, prepared by an international group of experts in silviculture, forest tree breeding, forest biotechnology and environmental risk assessment ( ERA) that met in April 2012, examines how the ERA paradigm used for GE crop plants may be applied to GE trees for use in plantation forests. It emphasizes the importance of differentiating between ERA for confined field trials of GE trees, and ERA for unconfined or commercial-scale releases. In the case of the latter, particular attention is paid to characteristics of forest trees that distinguish them from shorter-lived plant species, the temporal and spatial scale of forests, and the biodiversity of the plantation forest as a receiving environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mature forests provide important wildlife habitat and support critical ecosystem functions globally. Within the dry conifer forests of the western United States, past management and fire exclusion have contributed to forest conditions that are susceptible to increasingly severe wildfire and drought. We evaluated declines in conifer forest cover in the southern Sierra Nevada of California during a decade of record disturbance by using spatially comprehensive forest structure estimates, wildfire perimeter data, and the eDaRT forest disturbance tracking algorithm. Primarily due to the combination of wildfires, drought, and drought‐associated beetle epidemics, 30% of the region's conifer forest extent transitioned to nonforest vegetation during 2011–2020. In total, 50% of mature forest habitat and 85% of high density mature forests either transitioned to lower density forest or nonforest vegetation types. California spotted owl protected activity centers (PAC) experienced greater canopy cover decline (49% of 2011 cover) than non‐PAC areas (42% decline). Areas with high initial canopy cover and without tall trees were most vulnerable to canopy cover declines, likely explaining the disproportionate declines of mature forest habitat and within PACs. Drought and beetle attack caused greater cumulative declines than areas where drought and wildfire mortality overlapped, and both types of natural disturbance far outpaced declines attributable to mechanical activities. Drought mortality that disproportionately affects large conifers is particularly problematic to mature forest specialist species reliant on large trees. However, patches of degraded forests within wildfire perimeters were larger with greater core area than those outside burned areas, and remnant forest habitats were more fragmented within burned perimeters than those affected by drought and beetle mortality alone. The percentage of mature forest that survived and potentially benefited from lower severity wildfire increased over time as the total extent of mature forest declined. These areas provide some opportunity for improved resilience to future disturbances, but strategic management interventions are likely also necessary to mitigate worsening mega‐disturbances. Remaining dry mature forest habitat in California may be susceptible to complete loss in the coming decades without a rapid transition from a conservation paradigm that attempts to maintain static conditions to one that manages for sustainable disturbance dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is being promoted as a means of tackling global challenges including land degradation, climate change, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. However, as the FLR agenda gains momentum, it is critical that FLR initiatives pay sufficient attention in promoting the sustainable management of woodfuels, so far overlooked. In many regions, woodfuels (firewood and charcoal) are the main energy source for households and play a pivotal role in local economies; yet they are also associated with environmental degradation and adverse health outcomes. Here we examine the reasons why it is important to raise the profile of woodfuels within the FLR agenda and highlight the enabling conditions needed to promote sustainable management of woodfuels. In landscapes where woodfuel use is prevalent, FLR initiatives should consider enhancing wood fuel supply by growing trees, promoting fuel‐efficient cookstoves and kilns, and shifting pressure from natural forests and woodlands to planted trees. We argue that if wood fuel issues are considered in the design, implementation and monitoring of FLR initiatives and are supported by appropriate policies, resources and technical capacity, this will greatly enhance the sustainability and success of FLR initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Special attention is needed to quantify emissions from human‐induced degradation in forest lands because these data are more uncertain and less comprehensive than deforestation data in target countries in the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme. This study illustrates a Residual Trends (RESTREND) technique with a new baseline that isolates the human influence from natural climatic fluctuations to estimate emissions from forest degradation in countries across the tropics. Based on the recommended Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change methodology and framework, we found a pattern of high carbon density of 183 t C/ha in degraded areas, which was on average 1.5 times that of deforestation areas. Further analysis revealed that the initial value of carbon stock in degraded areas was about 5.45 Pg C during 2002–2012. We found that 17% of countries displayed values more than 100% of those from deforestation under the low degradation emission scenario, whereas 23% of countries displayed values less than 10% under the high degradation emission scenario. Thus, at a national level, with such an approach REDD could be further optimized and REDD targets could be achieved in an effective way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Tropical forests play a major role in the carbon cycle of the terrestrial biosphere. Recent field studies have provided detailed descriptions of the carbon cycle of mature tropical forests, but logged or secondary forests have received much less attention. Here, we report the first measures of total net primary productivity (NPP) and its allocation along a disturbance gradient from old‐growth forests to moderately and heavily logged forests in Malaysian Borneo. We measured the main NPP components (woody, fine root and canopy NPP) in old‐growth (n = 6) and logged (n = 5) 1 ha forest plots. Overall, the total NPP did not differ between old‐growth and logged forest (13.5 ± 0.5 and 15.7 ± 1.5 Mg C ha−1 year−1 respectively). However, logged forests allocated significantly higher fraction into woody NPP at the expense of the canopy NPP (42% and 48% into woody and canopy NPP, respectively, in old‐growth forest vs 66% and 23% in logged forest). When controlling for local stand structure, NPP in logged forest stands was 41% higher, and woody NPP was 150% higher than in old‐growth stands with similar basal area, but this was offset by structure effects (higher gap frequency and absence of large trees in logged forest). This pattern was not driven by species turnover: the average woody NPP of all species groups within logged forest (pioneers, nonpioneers, species unique to logged plots and species shared with old‐growth plots) was similar. Hence, below a threshold of very heavy disturbance, logged forests can exhibit higher NPP and higher allocation to wood; such shifts in carbon cycling persist for decades after the logging event. Given that the majority of tropical forest biome has experienced some degree of logging, our results demonstrate that logging can cause substantial shifts in carbon production and allocation in tropical forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Tropical rainforests are subject to extensive degradation by commercial selective logging. Despite pervasive changes to forest structure, selectively logged forests represent vital refugia for global biodiversity. The ability of these forests to buffer temperature‐sensitive species from climate warming will be an important determinant of their future conservation value, although this topic remains largely unexplored. Thermal buffering potential is broadly determined by: (i) the difference between the “macroclimate” (climate at a local scale, m to ha) and the “microclimate” (climate at a fine‐scale, mm to m, that is distinct from the macroclimate); (ii) thermal stability of microclimates (e.g. variation in daily temperatures); and (iii) the availability of microclimates to organisms. We compared these metrics in undisturbed primary forest and intensively logged forest on Borneo, using thermal images to capture cool microclimates on the surface of the forest floor, and information from dataloggers placed inside deadwood, tree holes and leaf litter. Although major differences in forest structure remained 9–12 years after repeated selective logging, we found that logging activity had very little effect on thermal buffering, in terms of macroclimate and microclimate temperatures, and the overall availability of microclimates. For 1°C warming in the macroclimate, temperature inside deadwood, tree holes and leaf litter warmed slightly more in primary forest than in logged forest, but the effect amounted to <0.1°C difference between forest types. We therefore conclude that selectively logged forests are similar to primary forests in their potential for thermal buffering, and subsequent ability to retain temperature‐sensitive species under climate change. Selectively logged forests can play a crucial role in the long‐term maintenance of global biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response by Manuel R. Guariguata to a letter to the editor about his article "Forest Degradation: It Is Not a Matter of New Definitions," by M.R. Guariguata published in a previous issue.

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) started as a global project aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by protecting tropical forests. At the same time, several so-called co-benefits were listed in the original documents, such as biodiversity and other environmental services, poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods, and good governance. I argue that REDD+ quickly became a project in which these co-benefits have emerged to be of central concern and that the rights of affected forest populations today dominate much of the REDD+ discourse. One reason for the redirected focus of REDD+ can be attributed to the activities of international and national environmental and human rights organisations. While this has arguably contributed to a process of democratisation in Indonesia, it has also slowed down the implementation of readiness projects. Taking my example from the UN-REDD initiative in Central Sulawesi, I examine some reasons why it has been difficult to establish the proposed five REDD sites in the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus ( REDD+) in Papua New Guinea ( PNG) is uncertain. Logging companies have been accessing land via a controversial legal framework called Special Agricultural Business Lease, while conservation non-government organisations are struggling to find schemes to stop the deforestation. REDD+ has been the new favoured approach. However, there are as yet only a few pilot projects, several of which are in areas without large-scale logging. Whether REDD+ has a future in PNG is difficult to know. It may come to share the fate of the portable sawmill - a technology previously assumed to promote sustainable community logging, but is now adopted by the commercial logging industry and providing new challenges to conversation efforts. This article argues that to understand the possibility for successfully implementing REDD+, it is necessary to look at the development of the forestry sector in the widest possible terms. This involves analysing the different competing actors, technologies and forms of social organisation that are employed to gain control of species deemed valuable to either conservation or commercial resource exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the province of Central Kalimantan in Indonesia was established as a Climate Change pilot province to reduce emissions from deforestation and through peat land forest rehabilitation. Today, international agencies, carbon traders, local and national governments, non-governmental organisations, and local populations have participated in debates and disputes over the establishment of carbon forests and forest protection areas in Central Kalimantan. One such scheme, promoted by the government of Australia ( Kalimantan Forest and Climate Partnership), intended to establish a REDD+ pilot project within an area that covers about 120 000 hectares in Kuala Kapuas in Central Kalimantan, the field location of this research. This specific dispute offers a case study based on ethnographic research that helps to illustrate how widespread climate change debates and disputes become embedded at local and national levels in Indonesia. The dispute over REDD+ will be discussed within a framework of dispute theories which focus on moments of crisis, wherein participants must present arguments and justify their actions and theories of justice. The article shows that competing and conflicting conceptions of justice that emerge in the dispute may bring to a halt a climate change pilot project in the locality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical rainforests store enormous amounts of carbon, the protection of which represents a vital component of efforts to mitigate global climate change. Currently, tropical forest conservation, science, policies, and climate mitigation actions focus predominantly on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation alone. However, every year vast areas of the humid tropics are disturbed by selective logging, understory fires, and habitat fragmentation. There is an urgent need to understand the effect of such disturbances on carbon stocks, and how stocks in disturbed forests compare to those found in undisturbed primary forests as well as in regenerating secondary forests. Here, we present the results of the largest field study to date on the impacts of human disturbances on above and belowground carbon stocks in tropical forests. Live vegetation, the largest carbon pool, was extremely sensitive to disturbance: forests that experienced both selective logging and understory fires stored, on average, 40% less aboveground carbon than undisturbed forests and were structurally similar to secondary forests. Edge effects also played an important role in explaining variability in aboveground carbon stocks of disturbed forests. Results indicate a potential rapid recovery of the dead wood and litter carbon pools, while soil stocks (0-30 cm) appeared to be resistant to the effects of logging and fire. Carbon loss and subsequent emissions due to human disturbances remain largely unaccounted for in greenhouse gas inventories, but by comparing our estimates of depleted carbon stocks in disturbed forests with Brazilian government assessments of the total forest area annually disturbed in the Amazon, we show that these emissions could represent up to 40% of the carbon loss from deforestation in the region. We conclude that conservation programs aiming to ensure the long-term permanence of forest carbon stocks, such as REDD+, will remain limited in their success unless they effectively avoid degradation as well as deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Fungi are drivers of wood decay in forested ecosystem, while bryophytes use dead wood as a platform for their autotrophic lifestyle. We tested the hypothesis that fungal communities on beech logs are mainly structured by substrate quality, while bryophyte communities are structured by climatic gradients. In addition, we tested whether community structure in both organism groups is altered along a gradient from nearly pristine forest to forests heavily affected by management and human disturbance in the past. Location Europe. Methods We surveyed 1207 fallen beech logs in 26 of the best-preserved forest stands across six European countries, representing a gradient in overall naturalness of the forest landscape. Recorded species were classified into ecological guilds. Indirect ordination and variation partitioning was used to analyse the relationship between species composition and environmental variables, recorded at log or site level. Results In total, 10,367 bryophyte and 15,575 fungal records were made, representing 157 and 272 species, respectively. Fungal communities were more clearly structured by substrate quality than were bryophyte communities. In both groups a distinct turnover in species composition was evident along a longitudinal gradient from Central to Western Europe. Fungi specialized in trunk rot and specialized epixylic bryophytes were scarcely represented in Atlantic regions, and partly replaced by species belonging to less specialized guilds. Variables related to climate and forest conditions were confounded along this main geographical gradient in community composition. Main conclusions We found that bryophyte and fungal communities co-occurring on fallen beech logs in European beech forest reserves differed in their responses to biogeographical drivers and local-scale habitat filters. Both groups responded to major gradients in climate and forest conditions, but the loss of specialist guilds in degraded forest landscapes points to a functionally important effect of forest landscape degradation at the European continental scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insular Southeast Asia experienced the highest level of deforestation among all humid tropical regions of the world during the 1990s. Owing to the exceptionally high biodiversity in Southeast Asian forest ecosystems and the immense amount of carbon stored in forested peatlands, deforestation in this region has the potential to cause serious global consequences. In this study, we analysed deforestation rates in insular Southeast Asia between 2000 and 2010 utilizing a pair of 250 m spatial resolution land cover maps produced with regional methodology and classification scheme. The results revealed an overall 1.0% yearly decline in forest cover in insular Southeast Asia (including the Indonesian part of New Guinea) with main change trajectories to plantations and secondary vegetation. Throughout the region, peat swamp forests experienced clearly the highest deforestation rates at an average annual rate of 2.2%, while lowland evergreen forests declined by 1.2%/yr. In addition, the analysis showed remarkable spatial variation in deforestation levels within the region and exposed two extreme concentration areas with over 5.0% annual forest loss: the eastern lowlands of Sumatra and the peatlands of Sarawak, Borneo. Both of these areas lost around half of their year 2000 peat swamp forest cover by 2010. As a whole this study has shown that deforestation has continued to take place on high level in insular Southeast Asia since the turn of the millennium. These on-going changes not only endanger the existence of numerous forest species endemic to this region, but they further increase the elevated carbon emissions from deforested peatlands of insular Southeast Asia thereby directly contributing to the rising carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research continues on the causes, consequences, and rates of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics, there is little agreement about what exactly is being lost, what we want back, and to whom the ‘we’ refers. Particularly unsettling is that many analyses and well-intended actions are implemented in fogs of ambiguity surrounding definitions of the term ‘forest’—a problem that is not solely semantic; with development of markets for biomass carbon, vegetation classification exercises take on new relevance. For example, according to the basic implementation guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol, closed canopy natural forest could be replaced by monoclonal plantations of genetically engineered exotic tree species and no deforestation would have occurred. Following these same guidelines, carbon credits for afforestation could be available for planting trees in species-rich savannas; these new plantations would count towards a country moving towards the ‘forest transition,’ the point at which there is no net ‘forest’ loss. Such obvious conflicts between biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration might be avoided if ‘forest’ was clearly defined and if other vegetation types and other ecosystem values were explicitly recognized. While acknowledging that no one approach to vegetation classification is likely to satisfy all users at all scales, we present an approach that recognizes the importance of species composition, reflects the utility of land-cover characteristics that are identifiable via remote sensing, and acknowledges that many sorts of forest degradation do not reduce carbon stocks ( e.g., defaunation) or canopy cover ( e.g., over-harvesting of understory nontimber forest products). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If global policies intended to promote forest conservation continue to use the definition of “forest” adopted in 2001 by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (an area of >0.05–1 ha with >10–30% cover of plants >2–5 m tall at maturity), great quantities of carbon and other environmental values will be lost when natural forests are severely degraded or replaced by plantations but technically remain “forests.” While a definition of “forest” that is globally acceptable and appropriate for monitoring using standard remote sensing options will necessarily be based on a small set of easily measured parameters, there are dangers when simple definitions are applied locally. At the very least, we recommend that natural forest be differentiated from plantations and that for defining “forest” the lower height limit defining “trees” be set at more than 5 m tall with the minimum cover of trees be set at more than 40%. These changes will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from what is now termed forest “degradation” without increasing monitoring costs. Furthermore, these minor changes in the definition of “forest” will promote the switch from degradation to responsible forest management, which will help mitigate global warming while protecting biodiversity and contributing to sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)