Billions have been raised to restore forests, with little success
Posted by Staff of goGardenNow on
Phys.org reports, "Billions have been raised to restore forests, with little success" and suggests the missing ingredient.
"Protecting and restoring forests is one of the cheapest and most effective options for mitigating the carbon emissions heating Earth.
"Since the third UN climate change summit, held in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, different mechanisms have been trialed to raise money and help countries reduce deforestation and restore degraded forests...
"In some cases, these schemes interfered with communities that have tended and nurtured forests for generations, restricting their access to the forest for fuel, grazing, and food. Meanwhile, deforestation has proceeded under the aegis of global markets hungry for beef, palm oil, and other commodities.
"The world is far off track to reduce deforestation to zero by 2030, or meet its target of restoring over 350 million hectares...
"A recent study examined forest commons in 15 tropical countries, where governments own the forest but have allowed local communities informal or customary rights of use and management. The authors noted that these forest commons had a high variety of tree species and offered enough fodder and fuel wood to sustain livelihoods in the local community. The wealth of biomass in these forests indicated a lot of carbon was also being stored."