Climate: Study Warns Of Impending African Forest Crisis

Source: Independent Newspaper Published:Monday, January 25th, 2010

As a $3.5 billion plan to transfer funds to forest-rich nations through Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (or REDD) is being recognised as one of the rare points of agreement to emerge out of Copenhagen.

A report released last week has warned that failure to set strict legal standards around land ownership in the REDD agreement may trigger a sharp rise in land speculation, corruption, and place unprecedented pressures on tropical forest lands and over a billion people that reside and depend on forests for their survival.

Entitled, “The End of the Hinterland: Forests, Conflict and Climate Change”, the study was carried out by the Rights and Resource Initiative (RRI), a global coalition of forestry organisations.

According to the report, unclear land rights in some countries, coupled with corruption, could upset aims to reduce emissions from unfettered destruction of forests in tropical regions. A number of studies named in the report suggest that, over the course of 2009, the pressure associated with the increasing value of forest land, and demands for forest land-ownership have increased violent conflict in some forest-rich areas.

The new RRI report contrasts Latin America’s progress in the legal recognition of rights of indigenous peoples to forest land with Africa’s experience. While a 2009 RRI report noted that some African nations, most notably Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and the Gambia, have made some progress on recognising community property rights, only two per cent of African forests are owned by the communities dwelling in and around them. In fact, the forested land in the Congo Basin allotted to industrial concessions is 46 times the size allotted to local communities, the report noted, asserting that that it would take 270 years for the equal distribution of forests in this region to match that of the Amazaon Basin.

Alongside the report, a couple of additional studies, one concerning China, and one on Liberia were likewise released last week. Over the last several years, |China reportedly made the dramatic move of handing over the rights to vast tracts of forest land to local communities, whereas studies of Liberia suggest the government is preparing to hand over concessions for logging based on severely flawed information on the current conditions of the forests.

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