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Forestry


Table of Contents

[top] [end]1. Issue in Brief

Worldwide almost three billion people depend on biomass for household energy. In most of the developing countries 80% of households are concerned. The availability of sufficient fuel (biomass fuel-wood, charcoal etc.) is indispensable for the quality of live of rural and urban population by enabling them to meet their energy needs in a socially and environmentally sustainable manner.

Fuelwood and charcoal are used to provide energy for basic human needs like the preparation of meals, illumination, boiling water for body hygiene and in some regions also for heating in cool seasons. It is used by individual households but also by restaurants, hospitals, some small industries, schools and other public institutions. Additionally, the importance of forest biomass fuels, from the forest management perspective, can be proved by the fact that worldwide they represent 80-90% of the quantity of all forest products (about 2 billion cubic meters). However, the importance of fuelwood is very often not reflected in political priorities and consequently also not in forest management.

Another thing that has to be noticed is the issue of supply and demand. In the developing countries where biomass is the most vital energy source, biomass provides approximately 35% (WEC, UNDP) of the countries energy needs but there large regional differences as well as determining factors which make the potential of natural forests and woodlands to serve as wood and charcoal sources hard.

Biomass energy management is related to a whole range of other social, economic and environmental development, and consequently can only be addressed by a combination of demand management and supply enhancement using an integrated, intersectoral approach.

[top] [end]2. Trends and History

Biomass was always the main energy source in the developing world. It provides cooking, lighting, heating and generalally is linked with household energy issues in these countries.

Throughout the 1980s, forestry - particularly the protection of humid tropical forests - was at the head of the agenda of international co-operation. However, international co-operation in the forest sector remained focused on technical aspects of forest management and protection at local level, and preoccupied with both forest ownership by the state, and forest management by public agencies.

Over the past decade, forestry as an issue in its own right somehow lost its privileged position on the agenda of international cooperation. This may be attributed to chiefly three reasons: Firstly, interventions in the forest sector take much longer to show measurable effects, than in any other sector. Secondly, while deforestation may be a problem of global occurrence, it is nevertheless brought about by complex and highly specific patterns of interrelated underlying causes, mostly from outside the forest sector. Each case must be examined in terms of its specific framework conditions (political, legal, economic, social), which are mostly out of reach for measures and interventions confined within the relatively narrow boundaries of the forest sector. Thirdly, the focus of international cooperation shifted towards one common, overarching challenge: The so-called Millennium Development Goals reflect the international community's paramount commitment to reduce poverty (EC 2002).

There is broad agreement that forestry continues to be instrumental in achieving this objective, since forests support rural livelihoods, provide food security, and are regarded as assets in most poverty reduction strategies. Forests therefore warrant a strong, continuing commitment by the national governments (G8 Action Program on Forests, Final Report 2002).

The discussion about household energy provides a particularly vivid example for the close interrelation between poverty and deforestation: People threatened by poverty often take to haphazard forest exploitation as their last resort. Where most other income opportunities have been taken away by war, domestic turmoil or economic recession, selling firewood or burning charcoal often offer the last remaining chances of survival. On the other hand, the number of poor people depending on forest resources for a living (at least partly), is currently estimated as 1.6 billion. Of these, about 350 million people almost entirely rely on forest resources for obtaining subsistence supplies, and generating supplementary income (WB, 2002). There number is likely to increase in times of need, when other means of earning one's living or for food production fail (EC, 2002).

[top] [end]3. Current Best Practice

During the last decades the growing threat of global deforestation has become an issue of great concern. For this reason, governments worldwide took actions in order to mitigate the problem. In 1992 at the UNCED-Conference in Rio de Janeiro, the Non-legally binding Forest Principles agreement was decided which was considering the ways in which forests should be managed in the future and marked a new era of forest co-operation.

This kind of "new spirit" conveyed in the forest principles becomes particularly conspicuous in elements:

1(a): upholding national sovereignty in resource management and exploitation, based on comprehensive national environmental policies;

2(d): obliging governments to ensure broad stakeholder participation in the development, planning and implementation of national forest policies;

7(a): highlighting the close interrelation between sustainable patterns of production and consumption, poverty alleviation, and food security;

8(e): stressing the importance of cross-sectoral, comprehensive approaches.

While these selected examples illustrate the international consensus about principles for the protection, development and sustainable utilization of forest resources, other can be found which emphasize the crosscutting nature, and special significance of the discussion about household energy. These are elements:

9(b): acknowledging the close interrelation between poverty and deforestation, and highlighting the fundamental dependency of the rural poor on a steady, predictable supply of forest products and services;

2(b): enumerating various timber, non-timber, and non-wood forest products essential for maintaining the livelihoods of people in developing countries, particularly those of the rural poor;

5(a): underlining the necessity to observe, and protect the rights of indigenous peoples, and other forest dwelling communities dependent on the forest;

5(b): calling for full participation of women (which fact is particularly significant for the household energy discussion);

6(a): stressing expressly the role of the forests in supplying an adapted, renewable source of energy.

Similar to the forest principles, results of the various post-Rio processes and initiatives contain many references to the household energy issue, witness the deliberations of IPF/IFF. Established as ad-hoc expert committees with the task of following up on the international forest political discussion initiated at the UNCED conference, IPF (Intergovernmental Panel on Forests) and its successor, IFF (Intergovernmental Forum on Forests), drafted a set of around 250 concise proposals for action, which have since been edited by the Six-Country Initiative (in support of the IFF) in a structured and clustered manner (in the form of the so-called "Practitioners' Guide"). Referring to UNCED, the Agenda 21, and the forest principles; and drawing chiefly on the concept of national forest programs (NFP) as the overall, and most important framework for implementation of concrete measures at the national level, IPF/IFF emphasized - among other things - traditional knowledge of local forest users and communities, multiple benefits accruing from sustainable forest management, specific needs of developing and sparsely forested countries, and problems related to deforestation, land degradation, and desertification. All of these aspects obviously relate to household energy issues. Moreover, a number of strategy papers on forest development by different donor organizations cooperation reflect these trends. They invariably focus on increased involvement of the private sector and broad stakeholder participation, policy-, and legal reforms (including administrative decentralization), and innovative financing instruments.

Comparing alternative approaches for implementing household energy related projects or project components, three basic strategies can be distinguished:
  1. Supply enhancement: This approach relates directly to forest sector development and forest management, as it aims at increasing the supply of biomass fuels.
  2. Fuel substitution: Wherever the consumption of biomass for household energy purposes contributes significantly to deforestation and land degradation problems, provision of alternative sources / technologies (kerosene, butane, solar energy - and the related stoves) can be an (the?) answer.
  3. Demand management: This strategy still relies on biomass fuels, but seeks to increase the efficiency of their use - thereby reducing consumption volumes.
Although actions has being taken to tackle forestry issues, experience has shown that isolated measures offer no patent remedy. Each of the above strategies alone - while certainly valuable in themselves - cannot overcome household energy related problems (or contribute to overarching goals such as sustainable resource management or poverty alleviation), unless they are combined in an integrated, cross-sectoral approach. But even then, unchecked population growth will counter, and possibly offset the impact of development co-operation interventions. For this reason, three more points need to be addressed concerning the forests' fuel-wood supply function. The first point is the collection of necessary information including data on the current and potential supply of forest products and utilization as well as pricing of forest products and services. The second point is shaping conductive framework conditions for forest sector development, namely creation of policy coherence - forest policies, energy policies, fiscal policies and land use policies. Finally is the implementation of sustainable forest management which at the technical level offers many interfaces for an enhancement also of the supply of biomass fuels, witness the choice of tree species for afforestation.

[top] [end]4. Areas of Research

[top] [end]Forestry and Fuels

Forest sector is linked to fuels and particularly to woodfuels. Researches are mainly focused on alternative fuels for domestic sector which can replace traditional fuels (oil, coal etc) for cooking and heating. Hence, through the use of biomass fuels is becoming clear the key role of forestry. Biomass fuels can be derived from both woody and non-woody biomass, namely trees as well as from crop residues and other vegetation, respectively. Trees, crop residues and other vegetation can be converted into charcoal. The most well known woodfuels are the firewood and charcoal. Moreover, reasearches have focused on improved cooking stoves with used fuels charcoal, ethanol and ethanol gel. However, ethanol needs further processing in order to become ethanol gel fuel.

[top] [end]Forestry and Health Effects

Woodfuels are cheaper than conventional fuels and concerning the impacts that these have on human health can be both positive and negative. Biomass fuels are gathered outside the market economy and hence this does not burden the poorest communities from the developing countries. Furthermore, village or household woodlots can relieve the time consuming burden of firewood collection.

[top] [end]Forestry and Indoor Air Polltion

Despite the advantages of woofuels, they can have severe effects on human health. The continuous breathing of wood smoke in indoor places can cause many respiratory problems. Moreover, due to incomplete combustion, biomass produces a number of toxic and carcinogenic elements and particulate matter (PM) that have been associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among women and children.

[top] [end]Forestry and Climate Change

  • Impact of climate change on forests: Climate change can have a significant impact on forests. The main reason is the growing temperature in the atmosphere leading to changes in the availability of water, on agricultural crop yields, on food security, and health issues related to malnutrition. Moreover, variations in environmental temperatures can cause severe floods derived from an increase in the intensity of violent storms which in turn can cause greater infrastructure damage and an increase in the incidence of human diseases like malaria and cholera. Another fact that links climate chage with forest sector is the issue of deforestation which contributes about 20% of global CO2 emissions leading to global warming (http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/ravi/more.htm). Generally, climate change can cause serious damage in forests due to their lack of ability to adapt and survive in the environmental changes as well as it can have a negative impact on forest ecosystems and biodiversity.
  • Forestry role in tackling climate change: The most important impact that forests can have due to climate change is the release of greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, the better management of existing forest resources, the expansion of the forest cover, as well as the use of woodfuels for replacing fossil fuels can be considered significant interventions for mitigating climate change. Moreover, forestry can have a key role in mitigating climate change as there is the potential to sequester about 2 gigatonnes of carbon annually (http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/ravi/more.htm). See also the UNEP-Risoe Centre Publication: http://cd4cdm.org/Publications/RisksChancesForestryBiomassCDM.pdf

[top] [end]5. Resources/Web links

[top] [end]6. Organisations/People

[top] [end]7. Documents

doc file link CarbonSequestrationInDevelopingCountries.doc (57 KB)

[top] [end]Sources

This article is based upon two articles by Mrs Cornelia Sepp for Sparknet, and adapted by HEDON members.

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Page created: 12 February 2007; Last edited: 17 September 2008; Version: 6
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Pagename: Forestry @HEDON: EVDA