Management of Degraded Forest: Eco-Restoration

Through REDD+ Strategies

Alex K George

2014-17-115

I M Sc. Forestry

REDD

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation

(REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in

forests, offering incentives ($30 billion per year) for developing

countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-

carbon paths to sustainable development.

- UNFCCC

Origin of REDD/ REDD+

REDD+

a) Reducing emissions from deforestation

b) Reducing emissions from forest degradation

c) Conservation of forest - carbon stocks, biodiversity

d) Sustainable management of forest

e) Enhancement of forest carbon stocks – restoration and afforestation

-UNFCCC 2009

STRATEGY OF REDD+

Supports international cooperation and national action to

reduce deforestation,

prevent forest degradation,

promote sustainable livelihoods and reduce poverty for all forest-dependent

people

enhancing carbon stock

and thereby mitigating climate change.

Ecosystem Restoration

• Ecosystem Restoration is the “process of assisting the recovery of anecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed”.

- SER Primer, 2004

• Ecosystem Restoration - important component of conservation andsustainable development programmes - the livelihoods of people dependingon the degraded ecosystems can be sustained along with biodiversityconservation.

• Ecological restoration is an important tool to reverse global losses of forestcarbon stocks/ carbon mitigation strategies under the REDD+

Restoration projects can,

1. Protect existing carbon pools by avoiding conversion.

2. Accelerates the rate of carbon sequestration

A. Releasing remaining trees from competing

B. Enrichment planting of selected seedlings

3. Enhance biodiversity and ecosystem service provision

4. Providing important sources of food, fuel wood, and wild fodder and also

employment of local people – increased livelihood – reduced pressure on forest.

To restore

Stop the causes of degradation and allow forests to regenerate on their own

Accelerate tree regeneration and growth through application of any of a variety of silvicultural treatments.

Plant seeds or seedlings in natural or artificial gaps - enrichment planting

Need appropriate incentives, policies, institutional arrangements, and local participation

Restoring slightly degraded forest

• SDF are timber harvesting was restricted to the legally permitted

fraction of trees and only occurred in accordance with government-

specified minimum cutting cycles or at longer intervals

• Reductions in carbon stocks and high-value tree species

1. Absence of silvicultural plans

2. Trained fellers

3. Harvest plan

To restore…

Reductions in logging intensities

Avoidance of timber harvesting from steep slopes and otherenvironmentally sensitive areas,

Lengthening of cutting cycles,

Use of reduced-impact logging techniques and

Liberation treatments of future crop trees in the residual stand.

Application of such treatments to a selectively logged forest inAmazonian Brazil doubled the annual rate of above-ground biomassrecovery from 0.16 to 0.33 Mg C ha-1 yr-1

Restoring moderately degraded forest

• MDF, more commercially high-value trees are harvested thanauthorized, and excessively damaging logging practices are employed

• Intermediate size trees, reproductively mature, and some large treeswith defective stems,

• Carbon stocks are reduced by half of that in SFD

Restored by

Silvicultural treatments - enhance the growth of future crop trees

Preventing pre-mature re-entry logging

Continued use of proper logging practices

Restoring highly degraded forest

• HDF, trees smaller than the legal- size limit and reproductively maturetrees of low financial value were harvested in response to strongdemand for timber and fuel wood coupled with weak governance.

• Opened canopy - excessive and repeated tree harvesting

• Susceptible to further degradation by fire or grazing

• Decrease in carbon stock

Restoration of HDFIntensive liberation treatments to stimulate the growth of trees with the

capacity to grow to large sizes.

Enrichment planting with native species.

Restoring critically degraded forest

• CDF corresponds to areas that barely qualify as forest and that are atthe ecological threshold from which unassisted recovery is unlikely.

• over-harvesting of timber and fuel wood collection

• Often burned, overgrazed

• Dominated by lianas, shrubs, giant herbs or other non- arboreal species

• Risk of further degradation and transformation to non-forest land isvery high

• Simultaneously will lead to heavy loss of carbon stock

To restore….

Stopping the causes of degradation and allowing natural recovery processes toproceed

Replanting

Assisted natural regeneration

Fire management

Grazing restrictions

Suppressing the growth of invasive and fire-favouring species

Protecting naturally regenerated native tree species

Weeding

Fertilizing

Inter-planting of native or even exotic nitrogen fixing trees.

- Sasaki, 2011

Ecosystem Restoration Concessions: A New Strategy forConserving Elephant Habitat in Sumatra?Arnold F. Sitompul, Mathew Linkie, Donny Gunaryadi, Elisabet Purastuti and Arif Budiman

• Heavy conservation measures – no growth population.

• Most elephants are living outside protected area where more human interventions

• Re-management and restoration efforts on former production forest, including biotic (flora and fauna) and abiotic (soil, hydrology, nutrition cycles and other natural process) components in order to re-establish a biological balance

• REDD+ able to provide sustainable financing.

• Increased carbon stock, enhanced biodiversity conservation and improved livelihood of tribals.

Constraints

• Lack of fund to provide incentivise

• Standard protocol to implement REDD+ projects

• Issues on ‘carbon rights’ are not fully addressed

• Uncertainty to legally claiming carbon stocks in designated REDD+ areas.

• Leakage

• Additionality

• Permanence

• Measurement

REFERENCE

• http://www.un-redd.org/aboutredd/tabid/102614/default.aspx

• https://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cem/cem_work/cem_restoration

• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320712001590

• http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/RestorationREDDlo-res.pdf

• http://www.sisef.it/iforest/contents/?id=ifor0556-004

• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00143.x/full

• http://www.wetlands.org/Portals/0/specialist%20groups/WRSG/Alexander%20et%20al%202011.pdf

Thank you…