UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews
Network
/ 26
October 2009 - Montreal, Canada - Maintaining
and restoring biodiversity in forests promotes their resilience to
human-induced pressures and is therefore an essential “insurance policy”
to safeguard against climate-change impacts, according to a study released
yesterday by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Because primary forests are
generally more resilient than modified natural forests or plantations, it is
crucial that policies and measures that promote their protection yield both
biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation benefits, in addition
to a full array of ecosystem services.
Those are among the findings of
the CBD Technical Series No. 43 on Forest
Resilience, Biodiversity and Climate Change,
launched on the margins of the XIII° World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. The study, a synthesis of the relationship between biodiversity,
resilience and stability in forest ecosystems, provides compelling rationale
for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for any forest-based
climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.
“Diversity is a key factor for
human well-being: diversity of natural resources and of cultural practices,
linked to biodiversity, increases resilience," said Robert Nasi,
Programme Director, Environmental Services and Sustainable Use of Forests with
the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia.
Much of the attention in the
present debate on climate change has focused on the carbon-storage capacity of
forests and their role in mitigation. The international climate-change
negotiations now recognize the value of ecosystem-based adaptation, but the
study suggests that, in reality, ecosystem-based mitigation and adaptation are
two sides of the same coin. Thus, protecting primary forests and restoring
managed or degraded forest ecosystems are key to reducing anthropogenic
emissions and helping society adapt to the impacts of climate change. It
further stresses that the resilience inherent to intact forest ecosystems—fully
functional units of plants, animals, micro-organisms, and fungi—provide the
best insurance against climate change, and help ensure that forests meet the
needs of present and future generations.
According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), forests are major reservoirs of
terrestrial biodiversity and contain about 50 per cent of the world’s
terrestrial biomass carbon stocks. The IPCC further states that emissions from
deforestation and degradation remain a significant (about 18-20%) source of
annual greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere. Hence, the conservation,
appropriate management and restoration of forests will be a significant factor
in climate-change mitigation.
The carbon pool is largest in
old primary forests, especially in the wet tropics, which are stable forest
systems with high resilience. Therefore, reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation (REDD) activities should take biodiversity conservation
into consideration, as this helps maintain forest ecosystem resilience and the
long-term stability of the carbon pool.
The resilience of a forest
ecosystem in the face of changing environmental conditions is determined by
its biological and ecological resources. Of particular importance are:
diversity of species, including microorganisms;the genetic variability within
species; and the regional pool of species and ecosystems.
Resilience is also influenced by
the size of forest ecosystems—the larger and less fragmented, the better—and
by the condition and character of the surrounding landscape.
If pushed past an ecological “tipping
point”, forest ecosystems could transform into a different forest type.
In extreme cases, a new
non-forest ecosystem state could emerge, for example from forest to savannah.
The new ecosystem state would
invariably be poorer in terms of both biological diversity and in its ability
to deliver ecosystem goods and services.
Because of their reduced
biodiversity, plantations and modified natural forests face greater
disturbances and risks for large-scale losses due to climate change than
primary forests. The study says that risks can be partly mitigated by
following a number of forest-management recommendations, which include:
· Maintaining genetic diversity
in forests by avoiding practices that select only certain trees for
harvesting;
· Reducing non-natural
competition by controlling invasive species
· Reducing reliance on
non-native tree crop species for plantation, afforestation or reforestation
projects; and
· Ensuring national and
regional networks of protected areas, incorporating these networks into
national and regional planning for large-scale landscape connectivity.
Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive
Secretary of the Convention said, “The 400 scientific papers we analysed for
this report arrived at the same conclusion: biodiversity is essential for
resilience and ecological stability.
These findings have vast
implications for the global and national policy agenda, both for the
conservation and sustainable use of forests, as well as for climate change
mitigation and adaptation.”
CBD
Technical Series No.43 is available at www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-43-en.pdf
The
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Opened
for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the Convention on
Biological Diversity is an international treaty for the conservation and
sustainable use of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits from
utilization of genetic resources.
With
191 Parties, the CBD has near-universal participation among countries
committed to preserving life on Earth.
The
CBD seeks to address all threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services,
including threats from climate change, through scientific assessments, the
development of tools, incentives and processes, the transfer of technologies
and good practices and the full and active involvement of relevant
stakeholders including indigenous and local communities, youth, NGOs, women
and the business community. The headquarters of the Secretariat of the
Convention are located in Montreal.
For
additional information, please contact Marie Aminata Khan on +1 514 287 8701
or at marie.khan@cbd.int or Johan Hedlund on + 1 514 287-6670 or at johan.hedlund@cbd.int.
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