Nature loss dwarfs bank crisis
Major decline seen in illegal logging
| The good news is positive results. The bad news is, those gains were the low-hanging fruit. To get us all the way to eco-librium, we need geonomics. We trim, blend, and append three articles from the BBC by Richard Black from (1) 2008 October 10 on the cost of nature loss, (2) 2010 July 8 on a Euro ban and (3) July 15 on less illegal logging. |
- Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.
Study leader Pavan Sukhdev said, "It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year."
"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."
Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free. So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.
Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.
- European Parliament bans illegal timber
From 2012, companies importing timber will need to prove where it came from, and will face legal sanctions if they do not comply with the new law.
The vote follows several years of wrangling over how stringent the legislation should be.
About 20% of timber coming into the EU is thought to be illegal.
The illegal timber trade plays a significant part in the deforestation of some tropical countries.
It helped sustain the recent Liberian civil conflict as armed factions used the revenue for arms.
The new law will force companies operating in the EU to produce "chain of supply" documentation so that, in principle, each piece of timber can be traced right back to its source.
Companies that operate "responsible timber" policies have welcomed the move.
This new regulation will mean that consumers can have even greater confidence that the wood products they buy are not contributing to deforestation and climate change.
However, EU member states fought for and obtained exemptions for five years on printed materials.
To a large extent, the new law replicates measures contained in the amendment to the Lacey Act passed in the US in 2008.
- Major decline seen in illegal logging
Illegal logging in the world's forests has fallen by nearly a quarter since 2002.
The London-based think-tank Chatham House says consumer pressure, legal restrictions by importing countries and media attention have all contributed.
Some important forest countries have seen much larger cuts in a decade, such as Cameroon (50%) and Indonesia (75%); Brazil is between the two. Globally, the figure is 22% since 2002.
Sam Lawson, the report's lead author, said "That (50-75%) sounds like a lot; but bear in mind that illegal logging was such a bad problem in those countries that even though it's reduced susbtantially, it still is a bad problem.
"So in Indonesia, for example, 40% of the harvesting is still illegal.”
Those practicing illegal logging include both large, well-funded corporates and smaller, artisanal concerns.
The last decade has seen several initiatives aimed at reducing illegal logging, both in countries that produce wood and those that import it.
The Chatham House report says it is time for Japan, as the country that imports the highest per-capita amount of illegal wood, to pass similar legislation.
Other Asian countries are of equal concern. "China is increasingly important [as an importer], but not just for its own consumption," said Mr Lawson. "It is increasingly acting as a processing country, the factory of the world; so a lot of the illegally sourced wood that ends up in Europe and the US passes through Chinese factories."
In timber producing countries, factors that have proven to be preconditions for tackling illegal logging are political stability and the effective rule of law.
This raises concerns about some important forest nations not covered in the study, such as Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The UN climate process does have the potential to curb deforestation, by rewarding developing countries financially for protecting their forests.
Increasingly, people in the field are arguing that money ought to go first into developing effective governance regimes.
JJS: May people in the field also see a way to make the entire economy work right for everyone, both people and planet. A policy to achieve that lofty goal is geonomics: We would end subsidies to extractors. Even more, we’d charge them for what they take. At the same time, we’d de-tax the values people make. And grant us all a share in the socially-generated value of sites and resources. That’s a powerful combination to restore forests and the whole ecosystem.
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Editor Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Just what does a title justify?
Guess What. Wasting the World is Not Cheap
A cost benefit analysis of trees vs logs |
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