Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon

Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) has gained international attention over the past decade, as manifested in both United Nations policy discussions and hundreds of voluntary projects launched to earn carbon-offset credits. There are on-going discussions about whether and how projects should be integrated into national efforts under the Paris Agreement. One consideration is whether these projects have generated additional impacts over and above national policies and other conservation measures. To help inform these discussions, we compare the crediting baselines established ex-ante by voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon to counterfactuals constructed ex-post based on the quasi-experimental synthetic control method. We find that the crediting baselines assume consistently higher deforestation than counterfactual forest loss in synthetic control sites. This gap is partially due to decreased deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the early implementation phase of the REDD+ projects considered here. This suggests that forest carbon finance must strike a balance between controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets. Relatedly, our results point to the need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting.German Federal Ministry of Education and Researc

Can timber provision from Amazonian production forests be sustainable?

Around 30 Mm3 of sawlogs are extracted annually by selective logging of natural production forests in Amazonia, Earth's most extensive tropical forest. Decisions concerning the management of these production forests will be of major importance for Amazonian forests' fate. To date, no regional assessment of selective logging sustainability supports decision-making. Based on data from 3500 ha of forest inventory plots, our modelling results show that the average periodic harvests of 20 m3 ha−1 will not recover by the end of a standard 30 year cutting cycle. Timber recovery within a cutting cycle is enhanced by commercial acceptance of more species and with the adoption of longer cutting cycles and lower logging intensities. Recovery rates are faster in Western Amazonia than on the Guiana Shield. Our simulations suggest that regardless of cutting cycle duration and logging intensities, selectively logged forests are unlikely to meet timber demands over the long term as timber stocks are predicted to steadily decline. There is thus an urgent need to develop an integrated forest resource management policy that combines active management of production forests with the restoration of degraded and secondary forests for timber production. Without better management, reduced timber harvests and continued timber production declines are unavoidable

Carbon recovery dynamics following disturbance by selective logging in Amazonian forests

Abstract When 2 Mha of Amazonian forests are disturbed by selective logging each year, more than 90 Tg of carbon (C) is emitted to the atmosphere. Emissions are then counterbalanced by forest regrowth. With an original modelling approach, calibrated on a network of 133 permanent forest plots (175 ha total) across Amazonia, we link regional differences in climate, soil and initial biomass with survivors' and recruits' C fluxes to provide Amazon-wide predictions of post-logging C recovery. We show that net aboveground C recovery over 10 years is higher in the Guiana Shield and in the west (21 AE3 Mg C ha À1 ) than in the south (12 AE3 Mg C ha À1 ) where environmental stress is high (low rainfall, high seasonality). We highlight the key role of survivors in the forest regrowth and elaborate a comprehensive map of post-disturbance C recovery potential in Amazonia

The Forest Observation System, building a global reference dataset for remote sensing of forest biomass

International audienceForest biomass is an essential indicator for monitoring the Earth's ecosystems and climate. It is a critical input to greenhouse gas accounting, estimation of carbon losses and forest degradation, assessment of renewable energy potential, and for developing climate change mitigation policies such as REDD+, among others. Wall-to-wall mapping of aboveground biomass (aGB) is now possible with satellite remote sensing (RS). However, RS methods require extant, up-to-date, reliable, representative and comparable in situ data for calibration and validation. Here, we present the Forest Observation System (FOS) initiative, an international cooperation to establish and maintain a global in situ forest biomass database. aGB and canopy height estimates with their associated uncertainties are derived at a 0.25 ha scale from field measurements made in permanent research plots across the world's forests. all plot estimates are geolocated and have a size that allows for direct comparison with many RS measurements. The FOS offers the potential to improve the accuracy of RS-based biomass products while developing new synergies between the RS and ground-based ecosystem research communities

Methodology for calculating carbon credits for forest projects involving the conversion from conventional to reduced-impact logging

As crescentes preocupações com a mitigação das mudanças do clima levaram à criação de mecanismos de mercado que recompensassem financeiramente ações adicionais de remoção de gases do efeito estufa da atmosfera através de projetos voltados ao mercado de carbono. Embora, no âmbito do Protocolo de Kyoto, apenas atividades florestais de florestamento e reflorestamento sejam consideradas elegíveis, a maturação do mercado voluntário de carbono levou regimes de mercado como o Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) a aceitaram, entre outras, atividades de projeto envolvendo a melhoria do manejo florestal, incluindo a conversão da exploração madeireira convencional (EC) para o manejo florestal com exploração de impacto reduzido (MF-EIR), atividade esta que, muito provavelmente, estará inclusa no escopo de um futuro programa florestal de mitigação das mudanças do clima, o REDD+ (redução de emissões do desmatamento e degradação florestal mais os benefícios do seqüestro de carbono através de melhorias do manejo florestal). Utilizando uma série histórica de 16 anos de dados de uma área florestal explorada através da EC e do MFEIR em Paragominas, Estado do Pará, estimou-se os impactos dos tratamentos na dinâmica do carbono ao longo do tempo, sob a perspectiva de um projeto florestal de crédito de carbono envolvendo a conversão da EC para o MF-EIR. A comparação entre os tratamento MF-EIR e EC em relação às taxas de regeneração dos estoques de carbono apontou diferenças estatísticas significativas (P 1,000 ha would likely be economically viable. Finally, the minimum estimated carbon credit price that would imply in no financial loss to loggers by delaying the start of the second cutting cycle, that is, the, time required for the live carbon stocks to reach their pre-logging values, was USD 5.33 per unit, which is within the range of prices observed on the current carbon market