The good news about carbon storage in tropical vegetation

New wall-to-wall carbon storage map can help developing nations track deforestation and report on emissions

A study published in Nature Climate Change today finds that tropical vegetation contains 21 percent more carbon than previous studies had suggested. Using a combination of remote sensing and field data, scientists from Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), Boston University, and the University of Maryland were able to produce the first "wall-to-wall" map (with a spatial resolution of 500 m x 500 m) of carbon storage of forests, shrublands, and savannas in the tropics of Africa, Asia, and South America. Colors on the map represent the amount of carbon density stored in the vegetation in a continuum fashion (Figure 1). Reliable estimates of carbon storage are critical to understanding the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by changes in land cover and land use.

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National Conference on Forest, Environment and Climate Change: Issues and Challenges

Forests are most valuable resource for the sustenance of life on the mother earth. Nearly 4 billions hectares of forest cover the earth’s surface, roughly 30% of its total land area. These forests have provided timber for homes, firewood, food, medicines, transport services and tribal traditional uses. Many of the world's great forests are mostly reduced by logging activities. In fact, few places on Earth retain any virgin forests. Though extensive, the world’s forests have shrunk by some 40% since agriculture began 11,000 years ago. Three quarters of this loss occurred in the last two centuries as land was cleared to make way for farms and to meet demand for wood. Over the last five years, the world suffered a net loss of some 37 million hectares of forest (FAO). Each year the world looses some 7.3 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Panama.

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REDD+: Opportunities to alter deforestation

Agus Purnomo and Yani Saloh, Jakarta | Thu, 01/26/2012 10:33 AM

The recent Durban climate talks had mixed results and different implications for each country, including Indonesia. On the main issue of reducing emissions from deforestation and peat land conversion, known as REDD, Durban made progress in setting reference emissions levels, measuring emission reductions (including agreements on measuring), reporting and verifying (MRV) of achieved REDD+ outcomes, and the implementation of safeguards to mitigate negative impacts of REDD+ projects.

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Indonesia sets aside 45% of forest-rich Kalimantan to be world’s lungs

BOGOR, Indonesia (25 January, 2012) _ Following a moratorium on new logging concessions last year, Indonesia has allocated 45 percent of Kalimantan, the country’s part of Borneo island, to remain as conservation and forested areas and serve as “the lungs of the world.”

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SHARE: print Logging of primary rainforests not ecologically sustainable, argue scientists Rhett Butler, mongabay.com

Tropical countries may face a risk of 'peak timber' as continued logging of rainforests exceeds the capacity of forests to regenerate timber stocks and substantially increases the risk of outright clearing for agricultural and industrial plantations, argues a trio of scientists writing in the journal Biological Conservation. The implications for climate, biodiversity, and local economies are substantial.

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Millions of long lost logs and a single special tree

Posted on January 19, 2012

If the ground beneath my feet last week could talk, it could tell a long story of land and logging, crime and conservation — the kind of story that defines rainforest politics.

I had come to Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia to learn about its potential to protect the Bornean orangutan, a species whose total population is so small it could not fill all the seats at a World Cup football stadium.

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SBY Sees Kalimantan as the ‘Lungs of the World’

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued a regulation that sets aside for conservation 45 percent of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo Island, to be the “lungs of the world.”

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