The Back Forty

The expanding global carbon and ecosystem services markets continue to create new possibilities for conservation around the world.  Last week, an op-ed in The New York Times by Robert Semple, Jr., described the efforts of Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo, to promote global investments in avoided deforestation as a part of biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation strategies:

…as an economist by training, Mr. Jagdeo is a persuasive advocate for new ways of looking at the economic value of forests. Right now, he suggests, too many countries put no dollar value at all on their standing forests. So any payment they get from harvesting trees is seen as a clear profit. If forests are correctly valued — for the carbon they sequester and the damage they spare the planet — then there is far more to gain from leaving them in tact.

While the global carbon market bandwagon rolls along, new deals based on sequestered carbon through avoided deforestation continue to fall into place on the ground.  CarbonPositive reports on an agreement by the regional government of Papua, Indonesia, to set aside one million hectares of forest in order to create reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) carbon credits.  The project, brokered by an Australian company, New Forests, is based on the government of Papua rescinding the logging and agribusiness status of the land, and will sell its carbon credits on the voluntary market.  As with other recent emerging deals of this sort, it remains unclear at first glance exactly how revenue will be routed, how local communities will benefit from the deal, and whether or not the presumed market demand for the carbon credits will actually take shape.

Meanwhile, the World Bank and several partner organizations have established a new web site for the Communities, Conservation, and Markets project, which aims to collect and disseminate information on payments for environmental services and other community-based conservation market issues and opportunities.