40 per cent of man-made carbon dioxide absorbed by forests...

The world's forests are much more important than previously thought in absorbing CO2, according to a paper published in Science. The study showed that forests are absorbing almost 40 per cent of the 38 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide created by mankind every year 

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, the Daily Telegraph

The University of Leeds research found forests absorb nearly 40 per cent of man made fossil fuel emissions every year.

The first study to look at all the world’s forests together found that established forests, from boreal forests in the north to tropical rainforests in the south, absorb 8.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

Scientists work out how much carbon is being absorbed by measuring the density of wood, height and width of different tree species over time.

A further 6 billion tonnes is “mopped up” by newly planted forests around the world.

However 10.8 billion tonnes is released as a consequence of deforestation as trees are chopped down and a further 28 billon tonnes is generated by cars, factories and other sources of fossil fuels.

The study showed that forests are absorbing almost 40 per cent of the 38 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide created by mankind every year.

Dr Simon Lewis, a tropical ecologist from the University of Leeds and co-author of the study, said trees are much more important to tacking climate change than previously thought.

He pointed out that halting deforestation and planting more trees could make a huge different.

"Humans are altering the world's forests in a number of ways, from their outright destruction to the much more subtle impacts on even the most remote forests caused by global changes to the environment.

"Our research shows these changes are having globally important impacts, which highlights the critical role forests play in the global cycling of carbon and therefore the speed and severity of future climate change.

"The practical importance of this new information is that if schemes to reduce deforestation are successful they would have significant positive global impacts, as would similar efforts promoting forest restoration."

Deforestation in the heart of the Amazon...

After years of decline, the felling of trees in the Amazon and the murderous violence that accompanies it is rising ahead of proposed changes to Brazil's forest code. In order to document the increases in deforestation in the world's largest rainforest, Greenpeace went airbourne and took a series of aerial photographs of the Amazon and the images are certainly worrying.

The images, combined with satellite data, are being presented to the Brazilian government today - will be interesting to see what their reaction is.

Mongabay - the trend in deforestation

Mongabay is an excellent resource for all things forest - here' s a video from last November explaining the current trend in deforestation - really interesting stuff.

We need to halt deforestation within a decade...

WWF - we need to halt deforestation within a decade...

As the latest United Nations climate change talks reach their final stages, CARE International, Greenpeace and WWF are calling on the world’s governments to show leadership and unite on efforts to halt forest loss by 2020.

The details of a global mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+) were under negotiation at the climate talks this week.

Yet, REDD+ alone will not save the world’s tropical forests and stop runaway climate change unless further urgent action is taken to reduce emissions in all countries, said CARE, Greenpeace and WWF. The organizations are calling on governments to commit to ambitious goals that set the scale and urgency for halting forest destruction. In addition, demand for biofuels, animal feed and beef should not lead to more forests being converted to agricultural land, said the groups.

“We are spending precious time designing a complex system of rules for REDD+. These are necessary to protect the rights and livelihoods of the millions of poor men and women who depend on forests,” commented Raja Jarrah, CARE’s Senior Advisor on REDD+.

“But this is only part of the story. With no ambitious commitment to cut global emissions, it is like treating a patient’s lung disease without asking him to stop smoking.”

While considerable progress has been made on working out the details of REDD+ in these UN climate talks, negotiators must not shy away from making the big commitments that will ensure REDD+ is successful in halting forest loss and tackling climate change, the groups said. This will also put the world on the path to a future built on low carbon economies.

“In Bonn, developed countries including the United States have been calling on developing countries to monitor, report, and verify (MRV) their emissions. But what we actually need is for all countries to be transparent about how their policies, including for public and private finance, are supporting the drivers of deforestation,” said Roman Czebiniak, Senior Policy Advisor for Greenpeace.

Industrialized countries also have a critical role to play in providing adequate, predictable and sustainable financing for REDD+, said the organizations. The needed finance to support REDD+ actions should be addressed at the UN climate change talks in Durban South Africa at the end of this year.

“The world must step-up with the money needed to support forest countries’ efforts to end forest loss,” said Gerald Steindlegger, WWF’s Policy Director on Forests and Climate.

“Investing in maintaining our forests is essential to people and nature.”

Fifth Activist killed in Brazil's Amazon over deforestation...

Peasant activist shot dead in Brazil's Amazon region

Killing of Obede Loyla Souza is fifth murder in a month in amid conflict over land and logging 

Associated Press and taken from guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011

Confiscated illegally logged timber floats down the Guam river delta in Pará, Brazil. Photograph: Reuters/Brazil

A landless peasant activist has been killed by a gunshot to his head outside his home in Brazil, the fifth murder in a month amid a conflict over land and logging in the country's Amazon region.

The body of Obede Loyla Souza was found over the weekend in the dense forest surrounding his home in the landless settlement of Esperanca, near the town of Pacajá in the state of Pará, said Hilario Lopes Costa, co-ordinator for the watchdog Catholic Land Pastoral in Pará.

Costa travelled to the remote settlement to interview witnesses and support the victim's wife and children, who are also afraid for their lives.

Police from the nearby town of Tucuruí confirmed the death and said the investigation was ongoing. Members of a police force created by the federal government this month to control violence in the region took the body to the state capital, Belém, for an autopsy. It was returned on Tuesday for burial. They could not be immediately reached for comment.

The state law enforcement agency in charge of land conflicts, the Agrarian Conflict Delegation, was not participating in the investigation, a spokesman said, declining to give his name because of department policy.

The Catholic Land Pastoral monitors the threats made by loggers, ranchers and farmers to silence protest over illegal extraction of wood and the violation of land rights in the environmentally sensitive region. More than 1,150 rural activists have been killed in conflicts over land and logging in the past two decades, and the group has a list of 125 activists who know their lives are in danger.

Souza was not on that list, said Costa.

The 31-year-old peasant was part of a landless settlement that occupied unused farmland in 2008, setting up a camp whose name, Esperanca, means Hope. He had been farming a small plot there alongside his wife and three children and waiting for the government land redistribution programme to recognise their claim.
Costa said that in January, Souza got into an argument with a representative of loggers who are illegally harvesting wood in the region, targeting the region's Brazil nut trees, which are protected under law. He knew he was in danger from then on, said Costa.

"There is in this region a really dangerous group of loggers," said Costa. "He had a fight with one of them over the cutting of these trees, and he was a marked man from then on."

Witnesses who did not want to give their names told Costa they saw four men in a pickup truck asking for Souza. The witnesses are also afraid for their lives, Costa said.

Within the last month, four activists have been shot to death, along with a witness to two of the murders.
The increase in execution-style killings led to an outcry in Brazil's government, which created a working group to monitor the region, and reinforced paltry local police forces with officers from the federal police, highway patrol and national guard.

Help must come quickly, because there are others whose lives are in danger, said the president of another landless camp, Francisco Evaristo da Conceicao.

He was friends with the victim, and part of the same movement to seize unused farmland for peasants without land. He heads the Barrageira settlement – a more established community of 107 families.
Like the victim, he had had run-ins with loggers, he said, and had been threatened by men he thought were part of the same group who killed Souza.

"We have a lot of problems with the loggers – they invade land, and clear out forest," he said. "We fight them, but it's complicated. Men have stopped at my house looking for me. Now I have to be more careful."

State of the world's Forests 2011

With the launch of Rainforest Life Funding's coming in September 2011 the Ibex Earth blog will be taking a very foresty theme over the Summer - here's a great video by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) about the work they are involved in in the Philippines. Well worth a watch.

Nepal Deforestation

A really interesting video that highlights the conflicting interests when it comes to deforestation in Nepal. Its a short three minutes, and we will be posting quite a few more videos on rainforests and deforestation over the next few months as we build towards the launch of Rainforest Life Funding in September 2011