Forests Under Threat From Climate Change:
Study
Date: 28-Nov-08
Country: NORWAY
Forests Under Threat From Climate Change: Study Photo:
Yusuf Ahmed Tawil
Visitors take a walking tour at a mangrove forest on the Indonesian
resort island of Bali December 6, 2007.
Photo: Yusuf Ahmed Tawil
OSLO - Forests are extremely vulnerable to climate change that is set to
bring more wildfires and floods and quick action is needed to aid millions
of poor people who depend on forests, a study said on Thursday.
The report, by the Jakarta-based Centre for International Forestry Research
(CIFOR), urged delegates at a UN climate meeting in Poznan, Poland, from
December 1-12 to work out new ways to safeguard forests in developing
nations.
It said climate change could have impacts ranging from a drying out of cloud
forests in mountainous regions of Central America -- making wildfires more
frequent -- to swamping mangroves in Asia as seas rise.
"Unless immediate action is taken, climate change could have a devastating
effect on the world's forests and the nearly 1 billion people who depend on
them for their livelihoods," a statement said. Measures include better fire
prevention, selecting tree species in plantations suited to a changing
climate, keeping out new insect pests and preserving forest corridors to
help animals and plants to migrate when some forest areas were cleared.
People who rely on forests would need aid to adapt to changing conditions.
Forests are a source of food, building materials, and medicines for millions
of people.
"The imperative to assist forests and forest communities to adapt to climate
change has been poorly addressed in national policies and international
negotiations," said CIFOR director general Frances Seymour.
Possible mechanisms to be discussed in Poland include paying poor people to
preserve tropical forests to slow climate change -- trees soak up greenhouse
gases as they grow.
Burning of forests, mainly to clear land for farming, releases an estimated
20 percent of the greenhouse gases from human activities blamed for stoking
global warming.
Peatland forests in Asia are among those vulnerable to drying out. "The
ecosystem is getting more and more vulnerable ... with the possibility of
releasing more carbon," Daniel Murdiyarso, one of co-authors, told Reuters.
"In many forests, relatively minor changes in climate can have devastating
consequences, increasing their vulnerability to drought, insect attack and
fire," said CIFOR forest ecologist Markku Kanninen, a co-author of the
report.
"Burning or dying forests emit large quantities of greenhouse gases, so
there is a chance that an initially small change in climate could lead to
much bigger changes," he said in a statement.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs go to: blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Editing by Alison Williams)
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