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Failure to understand deforestation’s causes may jeopardize REDD: CIFOR Report

Fire burns on degraded forest peat land near the city of Palangkaraya, on the island of Borneo in Indonesia. Photo by Charlie Pye Smith

BALI, INDONESIA (7 December 2007)—A new study by one of the world’s leading forestry research institutes warns that the new push to “reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation,” known by the acronym REDD, is imperiled by a routine failure to grasp the root causes of deforestation. The study sought to link what is known about the underlying causes of the loss of 13 million hectares of forest each year to the promise—and potential pitfalls—of REDD schemes.

Based on more than a decade of in-depth research on the forces driving deforestation worldwide, the report by researchers at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) found that there is ample opportunity to reduce carbon emissions if financial incentives will be sufficient enough to flip political and economic realities that cause deforestation.

The report was released today at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP-13) in Bali, where environment ministers from 190 countries are meeting to plot a long-term strategy for combating global warming. High on the agenda is reducing the 1.6 billion tons of carbon emissions caused each year by deforestation, which amounts to one-fifth of global carbon emissions and more than the combined total contributed by the world’s energy-intensive transport sectors. Media release in English ׀ B. Indonesia

Please click here to download the paper:
Do Trees Grow on Money? The implications of deforestation research for policies to promote REDD