Funding for KTGAL came to an end in December 2009 but the final years of the project have been very productive both in terms of publications (see Resources and Publications) and policy impact. We now have data from between 6 and 3 years from 30 sites in East and West Africa, and from the Himalayan zone, and data from four sites in PNG for two years. This shows that in 90% of the cases examined, there were significant increases in biomass as a result of CBFM, and that even in cases where there were losses, these tended to be 'one-off ' with stocks increasing again after a minor perturbation. In most sites, it was estimated that the carbon gain due to forest enhancement was at least double the gain from reduced deforestation and degradation which from a policy point of view is an important support for the inclusion of foreest enhancement in REDD+. A document entitled ¨How much carbon does community forest management save¨ summarises the findings in this regard; it can be downloaded from Resources and Publications, section 1.
The project also showed that communities' carbon stock estimates were as reliable and accurate as those of experts and professionals, but could be made a much lower costs (one third to one quarter, in the long run).
The project has also shown that the optimal model for most communities is a management system in which extraction of forest products (at sustainable levels) is combined with carbon sequestration. Managing the forest solely for carbon leads to high losses of utility and will not be attractive for the community unless carbon credits can be sold for unrealistically high prices.
During this period presentations were made at CoP14 (Poznan, December 2008), at SBSTA in Bonn (June 2009) and in a parallel event at CoP15 (Copenhagen, December 2009).
Phase 4 of the project was approved in June 2008 and fieldwork has continued in 4 locations in Tanzania, 4 in Senegal, 5 in Guinea Bissau, 1 in Mali, 9 in India, and 3 in Nepal. A number of sites are planned for research in Papua New Guinea. All these sites are areas where communities have already been managing their forests for some time and the primary purpose of the field work is to assess (i) the amount of carbon that accumulates under such management (ii) the ability of communities to make carbon stock inventories (iii) the costs of making such inventories and (iv) the opportunity costs of managing these forests. In some of the locations control sites in unmanaged forest have been measured for comparison. Preliminary analysis of the carbon data indicates that areas of dry forest (rainfall 700-1200mm) accumulated carbon at rates of 0.2 -1.5 tons standing carbon per year (about 1 - 5 tons CO2 equivalent), while our mountain forest sites (rainfall 1000 - 15000mm) accumulated at 1 - 3.5 tons (about 3.5 - 12 tons CO2).
Since the last phase of the project, it has become clear that forest management is unlikely to be taken up as climate policy under CDM but rather become an element within REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). Community forest management is particularly suited to reducing forest degradation and reversing this through forest enhancement. On the policy side therefore we have been working to support REDD policy development and to ensure that forest enhancement is included in the international agreement. The project has been very active in international fora on REDD, participating in CoP13 in Bali and in the Forestry Day and presenting preliminary findings at various side events as well as a new book describing project results in the Himalayan region. Several papers on degradation and forest enhancement have been prepared and published, including two Policy Pieces in the African Journal of Ecology, and a brochure for policy makers called "In REDD, the second D is for Degradation". These can be downloaded from the Resources section of this website.
Other recent news
The KTGAL project meeting was held on June 9th and 10th during the twenty-eighth sessions of the "Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice" (SBSTA) and the "Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" in Bonn during 4-13 June 2008.
KTGAL's project was mentioned on the "UNEPs Annual report", if you want to look this information follow this link.
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updates on progress of this project, please contact the manager, Laura Franco
(m.l.francogarcia@utwente.nl)