State of the World's Forests 2012.pdf - D'Dline 2020

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Figure 3: Shares of total primary energy supply in 2008 (percent)Oil33.1Geothermal/solar/wind0.7Hydro2.2Coal/peat27.0Combustiblerenewables andwaste10.0Nuclear5.8Gas21.1Notes: Share of total primary energy supply – 12 267 million tonnes of oil equivalent – excludes the electricity trade.Woodfuels constitute 90 percent of combustible renewables and waste (FAO estimate).Shares under 0.1 percent are not included; the total may not add up to 100 percent.Source: IEA, 2010.people, wood energy is critical for cooking, heating andfood preservation (FAO, 2010a).At the same time, forests are important componentsof ecosystems at all scales, providing a wide rangeof services and functions: regulating water supplies,buffering floods and droughts, mitigating the adverseeffects of GHG emissions, and harbouring biodiversity.Forests are estimated to store about 289 gigatonnesof carbon in their biomass alone; they therefore playa central role in the earth’s carbon balance and holdsignificant potential to mitigate climate change (FAO,2010b). Because forests contain more than 80 percentof the world’s terrestrial biodiversity (plants, animals,■■Wood charcoal production, Liberia. For more than2 billion people, wood energy is critical for cooking,heating and food preservationbirds and insects), they will be an important resourcein the development of new medicines, improved plantvarieties and countless other products.An increased emphasis on forests, forestry and forestproducts is therefore not simply for meeting the world’sincreasing demand for timber and fibre but also forproviding ecosystem services and sustaining livelihoods.Managing forests sustainably and enhancing theircontribution to people and the planet lie at the heartof a sustainable future.Realizing the value of forestsMany of the products and most of the ecosystemservices provided by forests are not bought and soldthrough formal markets. As a consequence, forestsare frequently undervalued and too readily destroyed,inadequately managed or abandoned. Trees can be soldfor fibre or energy, but markets do not exist (yet) for thecarbon stored in forests, the ability to conserve diverseflora and fauna, or the ability to provide clean water.FAO/A. Lebedys/FO-6968Major efforts are being made to focus attention on thisissue. For example, the motto of the Prince’s RainforestProject, led by Prince Charles in the United Kingdom ofGreat Britain and Northern Ireland, is “Working to makethe forests worth more alive than dead”. 11Considerable progress has been made in developingmarkets, including international ones, for a wide variety of11Additional information at www.rainforestsos.org.28 | Chapter 3
enewable NWFPs (such as nuts and fruits), withresulting benefits for forest-dependent communities.A resilient and durable economy will incorporate abroader range of forest values in decision-makingprocesses. Where markets are non-existent orunderdeveloped, public policies can play an essential rolein identifying and promoting recognition of these forestvalues. Current actions by governments, civil society andthe private sector to ensure greater attention to forestvalues include efforts to create markets that underpinReducing Emissions from Deforestation and ForestDegradation (REDD) (Box 4). As a consequence, there isbroad consensus that sustainable management of forestsis an important goal for all countries, and that it shouldinclude a greater emphasis on conserving and enhancingforest-based carbon stocks. In moving to a sustainableeconomy, deforestation and forest degradation must besignificantly reduced and net global forest area increased.Forestry in a sustainable futureForestry is the art and science of creating, using andconserving forests. The forestry profession was a pioneerin developing techniques for sustainable managementand, later, techniques for the multiple use of forests.More recently, broad holistic concepts such asecosystem management and landscape managementhave been developed, tested and applied.These are all elements of the sustainability andsustainable management of a wide variety of renewableresources. However, forestry is embedded in a changing,predominantly urban society that has limited directexperience of nature and is frequently sceptical ofresource managers. Although the term “sustainableforest management” is synonymous with “good forestry”,forestry and forest management are sometimes viewedas potentially damaging to the environment. This fearis justified where unscientific or illegal forest practicesare used, but the argument that there is a need to “greenthe forest sector” appears to give too little credit toforestry’s core concepts (see, for example, UNEP, 2011).Nevertheless, if forestry is to contribute effectively, it mustcontinue to evolve.Forestry is “sandwiched” between two extreme andconflicting views: on one side are the superficial, mainlyurban, perceptions of the felling of a tree or the huntingof forest wildlife as environmental offences; and on theother side are the poor practices and negative impactson forests that generally come from outside forestry (fires,pollution, etc.) or from mining and other interests thatperceive forest lands as reservoirs of land for mineralextraction, agriculture, etc. The tools for dealing withthese extremes are effective communication for the firstand land-use planning and enforcement for the second.A significant challenge for the forestry profession isto communicate and demonstrate the simple ideathat one of the best ways of saving a forest is touse it. When looking for ways to stimulate economicdevelopment, politicians and planners seldom seeall the dimensions and potential of the forest sector.Forests are viewed as either a feature of theenvironment to be preserved or, in stark contrast,a source of land to aid the expansion of agriculture.A balance should be found in which forestscontribute to achieving all of these goals: sustainableforest management adds value to a forest by usingBox 4: Is REDD a “game changer”?In The Future of the World’s Forests, Jim Douglas and MarkkuSimula suggest that the opportunity to receive paymentsfor reduced deforestation through carbon emission tradingis a “game changer” because it represents the internationalcommunity’s first attempt to develop a global mechanism thatrecognizes non-market values from forests – in this instancethe contribution to mitigating climate change through carbonsequestration.The authors acknowledge that carbon storage is onlyone of several forest ecosystem services that are not valuedby markets, but it is the first such value that people areaddressing formally by seeking to create a global market.Noting that deforestation is caused mainly by economicforces outside the forest sector, the authors conclude that“it will not be easy to use broad based economic reform asa primary means of implementing a revaluation of existingrainforests: it is simply too blunt an instrument.”The authors therefore describe themselves as “REDDoptimists” in their hope that payments for reducingdeforestation will be a significant accomplishment in effortsboth to mitigate climate change and to finance sustainableforest management adequately (Douglas and Simula, 2010).Forests, forestry and forest products for a sustainable future | 29
Page 2 and 3: Photo credits:Front cover: FAO/Kore
Page 4 and 5: The designations employed and the p
Page 7: ForewordThis tenth edition of State
Page 10 and 11: Executive Acronyms summary and abbr
Page 12 and 13: Chapter 3: Forests, forestry and fo
Page 14 and 15: 1State of theWorld’s Forests:the
Page 16 and 17: egions, carbon emissions from land-
Page 18 and 19: SOFO 2011 also includes a major rep
Page 20 and 21: 2Forests and theevolution of themod
Page 22 and 23: increased in the world’s tropical
Page 24 and 25: FAO/J. Ball/ FO-6875By 1700, Europe
Page 26 and 27: farming. The extensive forests of t
Page 28 and 29: standardized global definition of f
Page 30 and 31: ■■Natural forest cleared for ag
Page 32 and 33: ■■Native forest of Araucaria sp
Page 34 and 35: FAO/R. Faidutti/CFU000719■■Bask
Page 36 and 37: 3Forests, forestry andforest produc
Page 38 and 39: friendly products, firms in many co
Page 42 and 43: forest products for energy, constru
Page 44 and 45: FAO/I. AnimonIncluded in this econo
Page 46 and 47: in timber harvesting, manufacturing
Page 48 and 49: ■■Intermediary who links produc
Page 50 and 51: ■■Teak (Tectona grandis) planta
Page 52 and 53: Combustible renewables and waste cu
Page 55 and 56: ReferencesAnderson, A.B., ed. 1990.
Page 57 and 58: MEA. 2005. Ecosystems and human wel
Page 59 and 60: visit: www.fao.org/forestry/fra

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