08
Jun 2008 - Climate change is happening,
and we must develop ways for all life to
be able to cope. WWF Vietnam Programme is
looking at this through the development
of resilient multifunctional landscapes
that also work as forest corridors, assisting
with species dispersal and adaptation, by
changes in land-use practices.
The Central Annamites
forests, an area known to have existed as
continual forest despite climatic fluctuations
of the past, stretches from evergreen forests
in Vietnam and to the drier parts of the
Annamite chain, which has encouraged high
degrees of biological diversity. The landscape
has become regarded internationally as a
critical conservation priority in Southeast
Asia as this biological diversity may be
the key to mitigating the effects of climate
change.
Population pressure
on top of fragmented forest habitats mean
that species trying to move and adapt to
rapid climactic changes may have little
option. At the same time, continuing forest
loss means that people are losing important
watersheds and protection from new more
violent weather patterns.
Mitigating climate change:
Creation of a robust landscape
WWF has been conducting
a number of activities as part of the pilot
Central Annamites Initiative. The aim of
this fledgling initiative is to create partnerships
- from local communities to international
organisations – for working together to
secure biodiversity conservation and sustainable
development in the Central Annamites.
In order to create resilient
ecosystems and livelihood opportunities
for local people, a mosaic of protected
area, watershed forest, and production forest
is being created, combining existing nature
reserves and three new protected areas in
central Vietnam, which strengthens forest
conservation through the creation of protected
area forest corridors. This is particularly
strong in Hue and Quang Nam Province where
there is an east-to-west corridor connecting
the coastal areas of Vietnam to the forests
of Lao PDR.
However, the area also
has large spaces of degraded and bare land,
and there is a need to promote restoration
that encompasses ecological approaches,
livelihood and income generation, carbon
storage, and improvement of landscape connectivity.
With large tracts of
diverse forest systems, both protected and
revitalized, the robustness and resiliency
of the land will be maintained. This will
help to ensure a more stable environment
for the people, the plants, and the animals
in the face of ever more unstable climactic
events.
Chris Dickinson
CTS Technical Advisor
WWF Greater Mekong - Vietnam Country Programme
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Reducing deforestation:
Lao PDR and carbon trading
08 Jun 2008 - A new
opportunity has developed for Lao PDR to
be involved in the international carbon
trading market. Reduced Emissions from Deforestation
and Degradation (REDD) was recently endorsed
at the Conference of Parties 13th <!--[endif]-->of
the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change in Bali to provide incentives
for reducing emissions from deforestation
and degradation by providing finances for
the sustainable development of forests and
biodiversity conservation.
REDD is one of the key
schemes under consideration for the second
commitment period post Kyoto Protocol for
reduction of greenhouse gasses that will
aid around 20 developing countries to make
credible estimates of their national forest
carbon stocks and develop strategies to
reduce deforestation and land degradation.
Lao PDR’s Department
of Forestry has engaged various stakeholders,
including WWF, to prepare Lao PDR’ proposal
for inclusion in REDD. The country’s extensive
national protected areas and protection
forests provide a strong basis for initial
REDD strategies as they encompass about
50 percent of national forest cover, requiring
strengthened management capacity.
Under REDD, this country
aims to raise public awareness of national
and global benefits of participating in
carbon trading. Land-use planning and titling
programmes are stepping stones to engage
village communities in emission reduction
including the phasing out of slash-and-burn
agriculture.
In Champassak Province,
where WWF is engaged with Government and
communities in the ADB funded Biodiversity
Corridor Initiative (BCI), could potentially
be a pilot area for the REDD initial development.
The area has undergone extensive land-use
planning and delineated areas of protection
forest. Also potential is the conservation
forest area within the XEFOR II Project
site in Xekong Province. The creation of
the Forest and Trade Network could play
a role in REDD by ensuring sustainable forest
management of production forests.
WWF’s experience and
knowledge of protected area management will
be critical in supportting Lao PDR’s government
to implement REDD strategies. Strengthening
protected area management at all levels,
especially the inclusion of rural communities
will be important to ensure a possible future
commitment under REDD.
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Stop the madness of
wasteful paper consumption – make a ‘SHRINK’
pledge
09 Jun 2008 - A network
of more than 50 European environmental non-governmental
organisations today launches “Shrink”, a
joint project addressing the madness of
over-consumption of paper. Individuals as
well as corporate and institutional paper
users are invited to pledge to cut their
paper consumption, on the new website www.shrinkpaper.org.
“Almost everyone in
industrialised countries uses paper every
day, but we have become careless. For example,
65% of print-outs and photocopies, many
of which could be read on screen, land in
the bin before the end of the day, and junk
mail and catalogues are clogging our mailboxes,”
said Mandy Haggith of the European Environmental
Paper Network (EEPN). “Paper production
and use is directly linked to grave negative
impacts on forests, biodiversity, on water
resources, on the global climate and on
human rights, through irresponsible producers.
All of us can help to change this, starting
today by making a pledge on shrinkpaper.org.”
The website enables
people to make a personal pledge to use
less paper and commit to simple actions,
such as signing off junk mail and printing
double-sided if printing cannot be substituted
by electronic channels. It provides useful
tips for running a comprehensive paper use
reduction programme in an office, and how
to save costs by doing so. The website will
provide a running tally of the amount of
trees, water, pollution and climate change
emissions saved through the pledges made.
Helma Brandlmaier from WWF International
said, "Responsible paper production
practices are necessary and possible. But
we also need to tackle our careless and
wasteful consumption. People in developed
countries are using way more than their
share while children in developing countries
do not have paper to write on or books to
read."
Industrialised countries
consume more resources than the world can
supply while staying within its carrying
capacity: if everyone on earth had the consumption
habits of Europeans we would require more
than two planets. The madness of over-consumption
of paper is just one example of many where
people need to cut waste, leading the way
so governments and corporations can follow.
Coinciding with the
global launch of “Shrink” is a specific
communication focus by the EEPN in the UK
to some of the UK’s biggest paper consumers
– banks, magazine publishers, catalogue
companies and supermarkets – inviting them
to show global responsibility and to commit
to paper use reductions following the example
of individual pledges on www.shrinkpaper.org.
“Unnecessarily huge
volumes of paper are distributed by large
corporations as packaging, mailings and
publications, so we are asking some of the
biggest paper users to commit to reducing
their paper footprint. Our aim is to generate
a society-wide understanding of the need
to cut wasteful paper use and to help both
big and small consumers to take action to
make real reductions,” said Judy Rodrigrues
of Greenpeace International.
“The environmental impacts
of paper consumption are vast”, said Otto
Miettinen of Friends of the Earth Finland.
“Making 1kg of paper requires 98kg of other
resources, uses vast amounts of energy and
water and causes pollution. Almost half
(42%) of all industrially logged timber
is pulped to make paper products, much of
it sourced from old-growth and other endangered
and high conservation-value forests. The
paper industry’s climate change emissions,
including forest impacts, production, transportation
and disposal, are more than three times
those of global aviation. Europeans use
four times as much paper as the global average
so we are responsible for a disproportionate
share of those impacts. We must use less
paper.”
“In addition to problems
created for biodiversity, the paper industry
also has negative social impacts, so saving
paper is also an ethical issue”, said Peter
Gerhardt of Robin Wood. “In some cases deforestation
or chemical emissions by the pulp and paper
industry endanger people’s livelihoods and
have negative impacts on the health, well-being
and stability of local communities. In some
areas, forests or other natural ecosystems
are being cleared for conversion to plantations
with limited ecological value, employing
toxic chemical herbicides and fertilisers,and
with devastating consequences for local
people.”
“By using paper more
efficiently, companies and individuals can
cut paper purchases and related costs such
as toner, storage, handling time and disposal,
so as well as the environmental and social
benefits of saving paper, it can also save
money” said Jim Ford of ClimateForIdeas.org.
Mandy Haggith
Notes for Editors:
(1) Access the Shrink
website on http://www.shrinkpaper.org
(2) The European Environmental
Paper Network consists of more than 50 non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) who share a Vision
for Transforming the European Paper Industry.
The Vision was launched in 2006, and it
sets out a series of goals to limit the
negative impacts of paper production and
use: to reduce paper consumption, source
fibre responsibly, maximise recycled fibre,
ensure social responsibility and ensure
clean production. The NGO Paper Vision can
be accessed on www.shrinkpaper.org/our-vision.htm.
A complementary network with its own vision
in North America is the Environmental Paper
Network, www.environmentalpaper.org.
(3) Europe’s overall
ecological footprint is 2.2 times its biological
capacity, and has risen by 70% since the
early 1960s. The footprint of all individual
EU countries is above the world’s sustainable
level, which indicates the need to reduce
consumption across all sectors of the economy,
to less than half current levels.
(4) The Shrink project
is partly funded in the UK by the Esme Fairbairn
Foundation.
