Forests are essential to slow climate change.
Trees absorb CO2 and store carbon.
Apes disperse seeds that grow into trees. |
How saving the apes can help the fight against climate change.
Carbon trading has suddenly become a multi-BILLION dollar business. Not only could it reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming, however, it could also help protect forests where gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gibbons live.
This new working group has been set up to explore the potential of carbon finance to contribute to the conservation of apes and their habitat. Some conservation groups are already putting these ideas into practice – see http://www.climate-standards.org/
The ApAl Carbon WG is currently lobbying to change the rules governing carbon trading so that “avoided deforestation” carbon credits (especially from tropical countries) are recognised under the Kyoto Protocol and the EU Emissions Trading System. We must convince world leaders BEFORE the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (see http://unfccc.int/2860.php ) concludes negotiations on the agreement that will follow the Kyoto Protocol (which ends in 2012).
The following documents explain this complex topic in more detail. Please read them and write to your MP, MEP, Senator or Congressman urging him or her to lend support.
Documents to download:
- Sample letter:
An open letter from the Ape Alliance chairman to Rt Hon David Miliband MP, UK Secretary of State for Environment
Please feel free to use this letter as a basis for yours, or simply write in support of it.
- Summary of arguments sent with above letter.
- Submission by SFM to the UK Environmental Audit Committee’s Voluntary Carbon Market Inquiry.
- Submission by SFM to DEFRA consultation on voluntary standards for carbon trading
- Two page leaflet summarising the issue.
- Forest Carbon briefing document by Global Canopy Programme (more info at www.globalcanopy.org)
- The VivoCarbon Initiative - Forests First in the Fight Against Climate Change (more info at www.globalcanopy.org)
- Ape Alliance members helped to draft the Forest NOW Declaration, launched with a full page ad in the Financial Times on 12th September 2007. Sign up to this important Declaration at www.ForestsNOW.org and view the calendar counting down to Copenhagen 2009 at www.forestsnow.org/calendar.php
Click here to view Ape Alliance videos.
Archive of scientific articles: Click here to download and read Carbon Working Group related articles.
Science news & articles relating to the Carbon Working Group.
Africa is Losing its Deforestation Battle and Action Needed, Say Experts
Africa is Losing its Deforestation Battle and Action Needed, Says Experts
allAfrica | December 2011
The UN-based fund that helps compensate developing countries combat deforestation should start fighting the causes as well as the effects. That was one of the main recommendations from forestry experts who gathered at the climate change conference, COP 17, in Durban.
The discussion mainly focused on deforestation in Africa, particularly in the Congo Basin, which has the second largest rainforest after South America.
05/12/2011
Click here to read on...
Low-carbon Africa: leapfrogging to a green future
Christian Aid | November 2011
The new Christian Aid report ‘LOW-CARBON AFRICA: LEAPFROGGING TO A GREEN FUTURE' demonstrates the considerable potential Africa has to achieve the win goals of tackling poverty and the threat of climate change by pursuing a low-carbon development pathway. The report argues that it is possible to lift Africa out of energy poverty without increasing Greenhouse Gases emissions.
10/11/2011
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WWF timber scheme allows illegal logging, forest destruction and fails to prevent human rights abuses
WWF's flagship scheme to promote sustainable timber " the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN)" is allowing companies to reap the benefits of association with WWF and its iconic panda brand, while they continue to destroy forests and trade in illegally sourced timber, a new briefing by Global Witness reveals. While GFTN is intended to reduce and eliminate such practices over the first 5 years
of membership, systemic failures blight the scheme's ability to deliver for forests.
The Global Witness briefing, Pandering to the Loggers, discovered that major Malaysian logging company Ta Ann Holdings Berhad, which is a paying member of the scheme, has forest operations destroying rainforest at the equivalent rate of 20 football pitches a day, including orang-utan habitat within the boundaries of WWF's own "Heart of Borneo" project.
25/07/2011
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Indonesia to recognize rights of forest communities, indigenous peoples
Indonesia will "recognize, respect and protect" the rights of traditional forest users, including indigenous people, as it works to slow deforestation, reports the Rights and Resources Initiative, a coalition of NGOs.
Speaking at a forestry conference in Lombok, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the Indonesian President's REDD+ Task Force, said the government would immediately work to implement a decade-old law that requires recognition of adat or customary rights. The effort will include developing a land tenure map so government agencies can better understand how communities are using land and delineating the legal status of the Indonesia's forest area. Only 12 percent of the Indonesia's forest area has been legally delineated, according to Kuntoro.
http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0712-indonesia_adat_redd.html
14/07/2011
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[ Click here to view all Science 4 Apes articles... ]
The following organisations attended the first meeting of the Ape Alliance Carbon WG:
- Born Free Foundation
- Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK
- Cockroach Productions
- Fauna and Flora International
- International Fund for Animal Welfare
- Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden
- Sumatran Orangutan Society
- Sustainable Forestry Management
- Wildlife Conservation Society
Carbon Working Group - Organisations
The following organisations are involved in the Carbon Working Group.
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