7.8+Manage+rainforests++sustainably

= 8. How can rainforests be managed sustainably? (examples of sustainable management) =

Managing Rainforests
T here are 4 basic ways of approaching rainforest management:
 * International – for example REDD which was implemented as a result of Copenhagen in December – well not exactly as they did not actually agree anything very much there but under the auspices of REDD some good things are happening – see later
 * National approach – some countries are taking decisions to manage their rainforests sustainably
 * International NGOs – such as the Rainforest Alliance, Forest Stewardship Council among others
 * Small and local – indigenous people with the help of small enterprises attempt to create sustainable ways to live with the rainforest.

** Recalling the issues: ** The whole world is concerned with greenhouse gas emissions, and over the recent past deforestation has proved to have quite an impact on this. This is because: The gases that are released due to deforestation The greenhouses gases that are not being sequestered (locked up) by trees that are no longer there. As much as 25% of the man-made emissions arise from rainforest clearance. How come it is that much? Trees absorb CO2 and give out 02. Much of the carbon, combined with water make the sugar, lignin and are stored up for a very long time – they are a huge carbon sink. Once the trees are cut down they no longer do this any more. But many of the cut trees are burned – thus releasing their stored carbon – it is these 2 together than cause the problems.

For this reason, the whole idea of how the rich countries can encourage the poor ones to stop cutting down their trees has crawled unwilling up the international ‘to do’ list.

** The International approach: ** The problem of emissions of greenhouse gases as a result of rainforest destruction was supposed to be part of the Kyoto discussion in Japan in 1997. But it was put in the ‘too hard’ box because non-noe could decide how to do it. What was the original problem? It was not until the Montreal round of discussion in 2005 that the Coalition of Rainforest Nations brought up the suggestion again. Finally firm proposals were agrees at the 2007 Bali round, and it is at Copenhagen that agreement over its working should have been fully implemented
 * REDD ** - ** R ** educing **E** missions from ** D ** eforestation and Forest ** D ** egradation in Developing Countries
 * Who gets the money? The governments, the big land owners, the indigenous people?
 * If you are going to pay people to protect rainforests, then they need to say that they would cut them down if you don’t. What about those people who don’t want to cut them down – does that mean they get nothing to protect them?
 * Where does the money come from? The rich countries wanted to ‘offset’ their wasteful ways and carry on polluting. Environmentalists say the HICs need to cut down and pay up to offset their previous harm
 * A lot are sceptical that this will really stop deforestation – all that illegal logging and farming that happened before does not breed confidence

The Basics: reforestation and afforestation were part of off-setting from the start – but reducing deforestation had been deliberately excluded – remember the ‘too hard’ box? However, after 2007, this came under the remit of REDD and was included. REDD was also charged with How is it doing? It was never fully implemented at Copenhagen - but then nothing much was. However countries such Norway, Denmark and the UK are already in discussion with LICs such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Papua New Guinea.
 * monitoring the situation,
 * addressing the social problems
 * addressing the economic issues
 * that had led to deforestation in the first place.
 * Also REDD acknowledges is the biodiversity issue – all those useful plants and special animals we may loose unless we get a move on.

The National approach
Some countries are taking decisions to manage their rainforests sustainably. Tanzania has since the 1990s tried to run a joint government-local joint scheme to manage their forests sustainably. But hard times financially, has meant that they have not always managed to do this to a high standard. But now REDD is there to help, Tanzania has set up a system to make it possible for the village communities to take advantage of the chance to improve sustainability and reduce poverty.

NGOs
The FSC ( Forestry Stewardship Council) They certify providers of sustainable wood. They then certify the producers of goods that use certified wood. So that customers in HICs can buy wood products that come from wood from certified supplies. This encourages sustainable logging that does not lead to deforestation. [|http://www.fsc.org] Precious Woods, an international company that has a big operation in Itacoatiara, 250km from Maneus, the largest city in the centre of the Brazilian Amazon has signed up with FSC. Here is their corporate brochure that tell about their Brazilian operation. Note how behave sustainably.

The Rainforest Alliance Also certify goods as being from sustainable sources, but their range is far wider. They include food such as coffee, cocoa, chocolate, tea, nuts, fruits and also tourist venues.But they do far more in the field beyond registering. They work with Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) to ensure sustainable production. An example of SAN at work: Cocoa that is produced as part of an ecosystem with a mix of trees around is much less damaging to the environment. In Ecuador, farmers have learned to properly sort, dry and ferment the beans using a cooperative processing facility, which reduces the number of defective and rotten beans, and also happens to preserve the chocolate's anti-oxidant properties as well as its potassium content. Drying their cocoa using solar rather than gas powered dryers and selling their product through a cooperative, these farmers have increased their production and lowered their costs, resulting in better living conditions for their families.

Harvesting products from the native forest rather than cutting them down: It has been estimated that the products from some areas of rainforest, if regularly harvested give an income of ½ the value of the wood EVERY YEAR. Agroforestry: is a form of agriculture that seeks to copy nature more carefully than large-scale commercial monoculture (i.e. growing one crop) or cattle ranching. Rather than clearing the rainforest completely (clear felling), only the older larger trees are felled, and shrubs, other food plants (such as vanilla) and flowers are grown in the clearings. It is also possible to plant legumes which add nitrogen to the soil. What are the benefits and advantages of agroforestry?
 * Soil protection and improvement
 * Maintenance and retention of soil moisture
 * Biodiversity balance
 * Low impact to the environment
 * Pleasant environment to work
 * Harvest and income staggered
 * Reducing the use of defensive chemicals
 * Production of healthy foods
 * Environmental services

An example of it working in Madagascar
Savoka (or permaculture) gardens are planted on fallow plots and are planned as "a carefully selected succession of trees and plants on the fallow land that re-enriches the soil at the same time as producing a steady stream of food crops and other useful products." For example, the use of wild ginger adds phosphorus to soils while leguminous plants can fix nitrogen that is lost with traditional rice cultivation. The addition of perennials—crops which continue to produce for a number of years like citrus, manioc, vanilla, banana, mango, pepper, cacao, coffee, and rubber—can help restore nutrients to degraded soils and remain productive for decades while generating a diversified income and/or diet. A bonus of such agroforestry techniques is that they maintain forest systems, soils, and biological diversity at a far higher level than do conventional agricultural techniques. As long as such fields are adjacent to secondary and old-growth forest, many species will continue to thrive.

Ecotourism
Rainforest ecotourism involves both environmental conservation and sustainable development, which is a good way to protect the rainforest, and is like a perfect development strategy for undeveloped areas of the world. Tourism itself brings added dollars to an area's economy, but ecotourism has the added bonus of travellers who want to take care of the area they're visiting, through a combination of careful living methods that do less damage to the environment, and through bringing money which encourage the inhabitants to take care the forest is kept pristine.

Example: Costa Rica: Pacuare Reserve Lodge
The beautiful and well constructed Lodge overlooks the beach and a freshwater lagoon which opens on to the main Tortuguero canal. There is no electricity — this is the jungle after all!! Light comes form candles and storm lamps but there is gas for cooking and refrigeration. The Pacuare Nature Reserve was established by the Endangered Wildlife Trust in 1989 and protects 800 hectares of lowland tropical rainforest and six kms. of deserted beach on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. It is located about 25 kms.north of Limón and lies between the sea and the Tortuguero canal. The special mission of the reserve has been to protect the Leatherback Turtles, which nest along its beach - one of the most important nesting sites in Central America for this critically endangered species. The Reserve is rich in wildlife, and is home to about 20 species of mammal and many reptiles. Monkeys are plentiful and Howler monkeys regularly provide a dawn chorus

Just to be going on with - a link! @http://www.tropicalforesttrust.com/news-detail.php?newsid=290 an example of how NGOs are are working with business to ensure sustainability media type="custom" key="6208205" Good website about what you could do in your gap year in Peru helping preserve the rainforest - lots of possibilities!!

media type="youtube" key="o_aRHOQZsmg" height="385" width="480" Here is a good source of ideas about what they are hoping to do in Juma and some of what they have achieved. The Brazilian based NGO, FAS´ major priority is to implement de Forest Allowance (Bolsa Floresta) Program in its multiple components: income, social, family and association. The Bolsa Floresta Program is the **first Brazilian internationally certified initiative to reward traditional and indigenous populations for the maintenance of the environmental services*** provided by the tropical forests. Environmental Services are the benefits provided by the standing forests, such as climate stability, rain maintenance, carbon storage in the trees and biodiversity conservation. Link to the Bolsa site // * remember we said that how to help those who did not want to cut down the rainforests but needed finance to allow them to have a reasonable level of development was one of the big hang-ups about setting up REDD in the first place. // media type="youtube" key="eeJOnKeP4Gg" height="385" width="640" = __Managing the Amazon sustainably__ =

media type="custom" key="6317267" media type="custom" key="6327413"

Sustainable Livelihoods, Brazil Nut Program by ACA (Amazon conservation association\)
@http://amazonconservation.org/ourwork/livelihoods.html From Brazil nuts to community forestry projects, ACA seeks out and supports initiatives that serve the dual purpose of protecting biodiversity while providing an income to local people.

Programa Conservando Castañales

Brazil nuts have a significant local and international market and are a natural link to conservation, since the trees only produce in a healthy rainforest ecosystem. These towering canopy trees grow to 165 feet and have a lifespan of several hundred years. In Peru, areas of forest with dense stands of Brazil nut trees are known as castañales. These areas are given as concessions to local Brazil nut harvesters, called castañeros, who manage them under contracts with the Peruvian forest service. Brazil nut concessions are privately managed conservation areas that allow harvesters and their families to make an income from intact forest. Brazil nut harvesters sell the nuts to local shelling factories, which pack and export the product overseas. This extractive activity provides more than half the yearly income for thousands of families in the Amazon and protects several million acres of forest from deforestation.

How We Help

Research and monitoring: help to find ways to harvest with less environmental impact. Use GIS to find locate and register concessions. Set up Fair-trade groups so that concessionaires get a fairer price. Help get FSC certification

media type="custom" key="6373069"

An early example of ecotourism
@http://www.greenlivingproject.com/category/dispatches/brazil-dispatches/cristalino-jungle-lodge/

Cristalino Jungle Lodge
Established in 1992 when sustainability and eco-tourism were virtually unknown concepts, the Cristalino Jungle Lodge is the product of owner Vitoria Da Riva Carvalho’s labor. It began, as a way to protect the rainforest and her homeland but today it’s so much more. If the lodge didn’t exist, most of the rainforest near Cristalino would have been cut down a long time ago. When something threatens the habitat, the owners pull together to find a way to purchase more land to conserve. They successfully recovered 26 of the 126 watersheds in the area, and they have preserved roughly 2 million hectares in under 20 years. The lodge sits near an Air Force base, which means an even greater area of undeveloped land exists. They have been so successful that the government designated Cristalino as a national park. When land across the river was up for sale, they managed to pull together and purchase it.

media type="custom" key="21750000" ** Can cattle ranchers and soy farmers save the Amazon? ** ** Aliança da Terra may have the answer ** ** June 7, 2007: [] ** 4 years on and this will not seem very revolutionary but back then, no-one had really tried this method on conservation. There had been plenty of activity from charitable NGOs like the Rain Forest Alliance, and mutterings about REDD were already underway, but no-one had really put using the market as the means, rather than altruism. Given cheap land where law could often be bought and high profits, John Cain Carter believed the only way to save the Amazon is through the market. Carter is a Texas rancher who moved to the heart of the Amazon 11 years ago with his Brazilian wife, Kika, and founded what is perhaps the most innovative organization working in the Amazon, Aliança da Terra. Carter says that by giving producers incentives to reduce their impact on the forest, the market can succeed where conservation efforts have failed. On paper, cattle ranching in the Amazon may be the most restricted in the world, with landowners required to keep 80 percent of their land forested, however it was rarely enforced. Carter wanted to see farmers in Brazil benefit in following the law, by turning this restriction into a marketing advantage. However in order to do so, Amazon producers have to ensure that consumers ( i.e., buyers of commodities like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Cargill) can confidently say that agricultural products are produced legally and even more sustainably than stipulated by the law. The incentive for producers is market access: Aliança da Terra helps Brazilian farmers and ranchers get the best price for their products, but only if they follow the rules. While producers get higher prices for their goods, buyers like Burger King and Archer-Daniels Midland can say they are using legally and responsibly produced beef. Meanwhile more rainforest is left standing, ecosystem services preserved, and biodiversity conserved. Everybody wins.


 * Indigenous tribes, ranchers team to battle Amazon fires **
 * Rhett Butler, mongabay.com **
 * September 14, 2010 **


 * [] **

Facing the worst outbreak of forest fires in three years, cattle ranchers and indigenous tribesmen in the southern Amazon have teamed up to extinguish nearly two dozen blazes over the past three months, offering hope that new alliances between long-time adversaries could help keep deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon on a downward trajectory. The voluntary fire brigades, which have now spent more than 400 hours battling fires, are the product of partnership between Aliança da Terra, a Brazilian nonprofit working to improve land stewardship by cattle ranchers in the heart of the Amazon; Kayapó and Xavante Indians; local authorities; and the U.S. Forest Service. Over the past two years the Forest Service, with financial assistance from USAID, has led training sessions on tactics for fighting wild fires. The training came at an opportune time: the number of fires burning in the state of Mato Grosso surged from 5,000 last year to 18,800 this year, the highest since 2007. Exceptionally dry conditions have exacerbated fires set annually for land-clearing. An image released two weeks by NASA shows smoke obscuring a 2,500-kilometer corridor extending from Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil in the north to Argentina in the south. 148,946 fires were burning at the moment the photo was taken. Fire has long been used in the southern Amazon as a way to establish land claims and prepare pasture for low-intensity cattle grazing. But as some ranchers have improved their management practices and in the process, boosted the productivity of their holdings, fire has become an enemy. "In Mato Grosso, nobody ever fought against fire," João Carvalho, administrative manager of Aliança da Terra's Fire Brigade and the Xavante Project, told mongabay.com. "Non-stop burning was normal." But John Cain Carter, the U.S.-born rancher who founded and runs Aliança da Terra, says this has changed. Ranchers are now concerned about losing their productive pasture. Loss of quality pasture now can leave cattle without fodder until January. In the meantime, cattle will starve without supplemental feed from another source, a costly course of action for an already marginal business. Fire further damages fencing and can wipe out the gardens and farms of small landholders. Fire also puts forest reserves at risk. Under Brazilian law, landowners are required to maintain 80 percent forest cover on their holdings. Fire—which can spread easily from adjacent pasture lands, especially in years like this one where no rain has fallen since late April—can leave a rancher liable for hefty fines, if local authorities choose to enforce the law. Once forest is ignited, it extremely difficult to extinguish. Carter says the fire-fighting crews organized by IBAMA, Brazil's environmental enforcement agency, have often abandoned fires once they have spread into forest areas. The Forest Service-trained brigades on the other hand have fought—and doused—several fires burning in dense forest, include conflagrations said by IBAMA to be "impossible to extinguish." All told, Aliança da Terra's brigade has put out all 22 fires it has faced in pasture, cerrado grasslands, and forest. The efforts have been assisted by the availability of gear and strategically-placed water tanks funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a major backer of Aliança da Terra. Several ranchers have also provided gear and financial support. One even contributed a truck. "This firefighter brigade is now seen as heroes by the farmers, the local population, the squatters and the Indians," said Aliança da Terra's Carvalho. "The brigade controlled the fire that would otherwise still be burning." Edimar Santos Abreu, a former "squatter" or illegal settler, who now heads up Aliança da Terra's brigade, said the success in fighting fires marks an important change in the region, where squatters, Indians, ranchers, soy farmers, and land speculators have long been at odds, with conflicts often ending in bloodshed. "We are all in the fight together." The benefits of working together to fight fires extend well beyond protecting against financial losses. The success in extinguishing fires also raises an interesting prospect—the emergence of an informal system of governance in region where law enforcement is virtually unknown. This development could be the most important outcome of the fire-fighting effort. As important is a breaking down of some of the cultural barriers between the frontier groups who have been traditional enemies. Members of the current brigades will become trainers of tribes and private landholders once the dry season ends. Aliança da Terra will train "non-Indian" groups, while Colonel Mariano of Mato Grosso's Corpo de Bombeiros will coordinate indigenous training. Both groups will work in tandem: Indians helping out on private property as well as in the park and the ranchers, farmers, and settlers doing the same. All groups will be connected by radio, according to Carter, who says the program may be adopted state-wide. To be a member of Alianca's system, a landowner must meet certain criteria including reporting and monitoring requirements; implementing "no burn" management practices; protecting riparian zones; maintaining forest reserves as specified, but usually unforced, under Brazilian law; and establishing a 10-m wide fire guard between forest and pasture to prevent fires from "escaping" into forest areas. These measures could someday help transform the Brazilian cattle industry from one of the biggest drivers of deforestation to a key partner in saving the Amazon.