Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests Can Reduce Carbon Emissions and Stabilize Timber Production

Nophea Sasaki,Patrick B Durst,Francis E Putz,Andrew J Lowe,Wolfgang Knorr,Issei Abe,Hwan O Ma,Lian P Koh,Gregory P Asner,Yude Pan

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2016.00050

Abstract

The REDD+ scheme of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has provided opportunities to manage tropical forests for timber production and carbon emission reductions. To determine the appropriate logging techniques, we analyzed potential timber production and carbon emission reductions under two logging techniques over a 40-year period of selective logging. We found that use of reduced-impact logging (RIL) techniques alone in tropical production forests could reduce carbon emissions equivalent to 29-50% of net emissions from tropical deforestation and land use change, while also supplying 45% of global round-wood demand. Adopting RIL plus (RIL+) other improvements in forest management (adopting forest certification and DNA timber tracking to prevent illegal logging) and wood conversion practices (adopting technology to increase recovery of sawn wood), would result in increasing long-term carbon storage in sawn-wood and reduce logging-induced fire-prone wood wastes by 14-184%. For this to happen, about US$2 billion or $1.86 per Mg CO2 in financial incentives are needed annually for parties to adopt RIL+ and to prevent premature re-entry logging. Our findings suggest that future climate policies explicitly include RIL+ to satisfy the “sustainable management of forests” proviso in the REDD+ scheme, and also count carbon in wood products as eligible credits for trading.

Highlights

Tropical forests are diverse in terms of flora and fauna species
We found that use of reduced-impact logging (RIL) techniques alone in tropical production forests (PdF) could reduce carbon emissions equivalent to 29–50% of net emissions from tropical deforestation and land use change, while supplying 45% of global round-wood demand
Our findings suggest that future climate policies should explicitly include RIL+ to satisfy the “sustainable management of forests” proviso in the REDD+ scheme, and count carbon in wood products as eligible credits for trading

Summary

Introduction

Tropical forests are diverse in terms of flora and fauna species. Deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics have resulted in the annual loss of natural forests of 13 million ha, while degrading 500 million ha of primary and secondary forests (ITTO, 2002), and affecting up to 85% of the threatened and endangered species listed in the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (www.iucnredlist.org). Tropical deforestation is responsible for net emissions of about 1 Pg C year−1 (Pan et al, 2011; Baccini et al, 2012), or 10% of global anthropogenic emissions. Not included in these estimates are emissions from unnecessarily destructive logging, which unduly reduces commercial timber stocks and, worse yet, render many forests prone to burning and clearing (Asner et al, 2006). From 2000 to 2005, high-resolution global remotely sensed images showed that humid tropical forest logging had at least 20-times the geographic footprint of deforestation (Asner et al, 2009). Large canopy openings coupled with the presence of flammable logging waste render forests susceptible to destructive fires (Cochrane, 2003)

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