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The High Carbon Stock Science Study: Independent Report from the Technical Committee; Part 3: Gabon Case Study. The High Carbon Stock Study 2015.
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... The HCSA requires companies to obtain communities' Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) before designating land for conservation or development (Rosoman et al., 2017). Communities' FPIC was obtained, and a social contract established, before Olam developed operations in Mouila (Raison et al., 2015). Despite requiring FPIC, however, the HCSA remains situated in an agro-industrial perspective focused on trading-off conservation and economic development. ...
“Zero deforestation” commitments are pledges by companies to avoid deforestation when producing palm oil. Zero deforestation can be implemented using the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a tool that distinguishes forests from degraded land which can be developed. In highly forested countries like Gabon, zero deforestation may conflict with national economic goals involving palm oil and other agricultural commodities. We investigated perspectives of stakeholders in Gabon about zero deforestation and the HCSA using Critical Systems Heuristics, a systems thinking methodology. In 25 interviews with government, NGOs, companies, and research institutions, and two focus groups with rural communities, we identified three contrasting perspectives on forest conservation and agro-industrial development: international, national, and local. Zero deforestation represents an international perspective that marginalises issues from a national perspective. This may produce unintended consequences that undermine the legitimacy of zero deforestation, including conversion of Gabon’s savannahs and disincentives for sustainable business. From a local perspective, zero deforestation is embedded in an agro-industrial vision that may marginalise value judgements concerning forests and traditional livelihoods. Gabon’s National Land Use Plan could help reconcile the three perspectives but requires recognition by international standards. Adapting the HCSA to Gabon’s context should also be considered to promote legitimacy. Research is required to ensure proposed institutional arrangements deliver equitable multi-stakeholder participation in land-use planning. Gabon’s case shows the applicability of zero deforestation to all highly forested countries cannot be assumed. Improved international understanding of national contexts, and flexibility in applying “zero deforestation”, is important for designing effective and equitable international standards for sustainable agricultural production.
... We collected field inventory data in forest and reforestation areas in 2010 and 2011 (n = 53). The inventory plot design was divided into two different recording systems based on the recommendations of the High Carbon Stock Science Study [38,24] and Pearson et al. 2005 [39]. In forested areas, with high biomass values, we collected data in concentric circular nested plots (n = 36). ...
Globally available high-resolution information about canopy height and AGB is important for carbon accounting. The present study showed that Pol-InSAR data from TS-X and RS-2 could be used together with field inventories and high-resolution data such as drone or LiDAR data to support the carbon accounting in the context of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects.
... Our updated estimations were in line with C stocks reported in previous studies for time-averaged AGB of oil palm (30-42 Mg C ha −1 ) with 25 years rotation time 27,35,36 and time-averaged biomass for rubber (65 Mg C ha −1 ) with 38 years rotation time 37 . These stocks are also much lower than the threshold of 75 Mg C ha −1 initially defined by the HCS approach under which land converted into plantations would meet the C neutrality criteria 38 and still adopted by certification bodies such as RSPO 25 and in 39 . Calculation methodologies may substantially influence biomass estimations, depending on (1) allometric equations as it was the case for the biomass data in oil palms updated using recent and more robust equations 27,28 and (2) plantation rotation time that depends on regions and practices 40 because net C biomass uptake did not differ between rubber and oil palm plantations (Table 1). ...
Land-use intensification in the tropics plays an important role in meeting global demand for agricultural commodities but generates high environmental costs. Here, we synthesize the impacts of rainforest conversion to tree plantations of increasing management intensity on carbon stocks and dynamics. Rainforests in Sumatra converted to jungle rubber, rubber and oil palm monocultures lost 116, 159 and 174 Mg C ha-1, respectively. Up to 21% of these carbon losses originated from belowground pools, where soil organic matter still decreases a decade after conversion. Oil palm cultivation leads to highest carbon losses but it is the most efficient land use, providing the lowest ratio between ecosystem carbon storage loss or net primary production (NPP) decrease and yield. The imbalanced sharing of NPP between short-term human needs and maintenance of long-term ecosystem functions could compromise the ability of plantations to provide ecosystem services regulating climate, soil fertility, water and nutrient cycles.
... In term of cost, our open digital mapping methodology is significantly cheaper than conventional mapping and other technologies. Our method is 15 times cheaper than LiDAR acquisition that costs about $5 to $15/ha depending on the remoteness, size, accessibility and complexity of the area (e.g., Raison et al., 2015). LiDAR has been heavily promoted as the method for mapping peatland in Indonesia (Hooijer and Vernimmen, 2013). ...
Tropical peatland holds a large amount of carbon in the terrestrial ecosystem. Indonesia, responding to the global climate issues, has legislation on the protection and management of the peat ecosystem. However, this effort is hampered by the lack of fine-scale, accurate maps of peat distribution and its thickness. This paper presents an open digital mapping methodology, which utilises open data in an open-source computing environment , as a cost-effective method for mapping peat thickness and estimating carbon stock in Indonesian peatlands. The digital mapping methodology combines field observations with factors that are known to influence peat thickness distribution. These factors are represented by multi-source remotely-sensed data derived from open and freely available raster data: digital elevation models (DEM) from SRTM, geographical information , and radar images (Sentinel and ALOS PALSAR). Utilising machine-learning models from an open-source software, we derived spatial prediction functions and mapped peat thickness and its uncertainty at a grid resolution of 30 m. Peat volume can be calculated from the thickness map, and based on measurements of bulk density and carbon content, carbon stock for the area was estimated. The uncertainty of the estimates was calculated using error propagation rules. We demonstrated this approach in the eastern part of Bengkalis Island in Riau Province, covering an area around 50,000 ha. Results showed that digital mapping method can accurately predict the thickness of peat, explaining up to 98% of the variation of the data with a median relative error of 5% or an average error of 0.3 m. The accuracy of this method depends on the number of field observations. We provided an estimate of the cost and time required for map production, i.e. 2 to 4 months with a cost between 0.5/ha for an area of 50,000 ha. Obviously, there is a tradeoff between cost and accuracy. The advantages and limitations of the method were further discussed. The methodology provides a blueprint for a national-scale peat mapping.
There has been mounting pressure by NGOs on
sustainability and by the health fraternity against the
use of palm oil. This pressure is increasingly evident
in the European Union. It has also been a long
standing issue in the United States of America with
the opposition to palm oil as part of the broader antitropical
oils campaign. The purpose of this study is
to provide some clarity on the design, evolution and
outcomes of the Felda scheme for its smallholders and
its position within the Malaysian economy and sociopolitical
sphere. It also seeks to examine the situation
of the Felda smallholders and Felda commercial entities
within the regional, national and global trade and use of
edible oils.
While around 20% of the Amazonian forest has been cleared for pastures and agriculture, one fourth of the remaining forest is dedicated to wood production [1]. Most of these production forests have been or will be selectively harvested for commercial timber, but recent studies show that even soon after logging, harvested stands retain much of their tree-biomass carbon and biodiversity 2 and 3. Comparing species richness of various animal taxa among logged and unlogged forests across the tropics, Burivalova et al. [4] found that despite some variability among taxa, biodiversity loss was generally explained by logging intensity (the number of trees extracted). Here, we use a network of 79 permanent sample plots (376 ha total) located at 10 sites across the Amazon Basin [5] to assess the main drivers of time-to-recovery of post-logging tree carbon ( Table S1). Recovery time is of direct relevance to policies governing management practices (i.e., allowable volumes cut and cutting cycle lengths), and indirectly to forest-based climate change mitigation interventions.
Our society faces the pressing challenge of increasing agricultural production while minimizing negative consequences on ecosystems and the global climate. Indonesia, which has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation while doubling production of several major agricultural commodities, exemplifies this challenge. Here we focus on palm oil, the world's most abundant vegetable oil and a commodity that has contributed significantly to Indonesia's economy. Most oil palm expansion in the country has occurred at the expense of forests, resulting in significant GHG emissions. We examine the extent to which land management policies can resolve the apparently conflicting goals of oil palm expansion and GHG mitigation in Kalimantan, a major oil palm growing region of Indonesia. Using a logistic regression model to predict the locations of new oil palm between 2010 and 2020 we evaluate the impacts of six alternative policy scenarios on future emissions. We estimate net emissions of 128.4-211.4 MtCO2 yr-1 under business as usual expansion of oil palm plantations. The impact of diverting new plantations to low carbon stock land depends on the design of the policy. We estimate that emissions can be reduced by 9-10% by extending the current moratorium on new concessions in primary forests and peat lands, 35% by limiting expansion on all peat and forestlands, 46% by limiting expansion to areas with moderate carbon stocks, and 55-60% by limiting expansion to areas with low carbon stocks. Our results suggest that these policies would reduce oil palm profits only moderately but would vary greatly in terms of cost-effectiveness of emissions reductions. We conclude that a carefully designed and implemented oil palm expansion plan can contribute significantly towards Indonesia's national emissions mitigation goal, while allowing oil palm area to double.
Despite a large increase in the area of selectively logged tropical forest worldwide, the carbon stored in deadwood across a tropical forest degradation gradient at the landscape scale remains poorly documented. Many carbon stock studies have either focused exclusively on live standing biomass or have been carried out in primary forests that are unaffected by logging, despite the fact that coarse woody debris (deadwood with ⩾10 cm diameter) can contain significant portions of a forest's carbon stock. We used a field-based assessment to quantify how the relative contribution of deadwood to total above-ground carbon stock changes across a disturbance gradient, from unlogged old-growth forest to severely degraded twice-logged forest, to oil palm plantation. We measured in 193 vegetation plots (25 × 25 m), equating to a survey area of >12 ha of tropical humid forest located within the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems Project area, in Sabah, Malaysia. Our results indicate that significant amounts of carbon are stored in deadwood across forest stands. Live tree carbon storage decreased exponentially with increasing forest degradation 7–10 years after logging while deadwood accounted for >50% of above-ground carbon stocks in salvage-logged forest stands, more than twice the proportion commonly assumed in the literature. This carbon will be released as decomposition proceeds. Given the high rates of deforestation and degradation presently occurring in Southeast Asia, our findings have important implications for the calculation of current carbon stocks and sources as a result of human-modification of tropical forests. Assuming similar patterns are prevalent throughout the tropics, our data may indicate a significant global challenge to calculating global carbon fluxes, as selectively-logged forests now represent more than one third of all standing tropical humid forests worldwide.
We conducted an analysis of global forest cover to reveal that 70% of remaining forest is within 1 km of the forest’s edge, subject to the degrading effects of fragmentation. A synthesis of fragmentation experiments spanning multiple biomes and scales, five continents, and 35 years demonstrates that habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity by 13 to 75% and impairs key ecosystem functions by decreasing biomass and altering nutrient cycles. Effects are greatest in the smallest and most isolated fragments, and they magnify with the passage of time. These findings indicate an urgent need for conservation and restoration measures to improve landscape connectivity, which will reduce extinction rates and help maintain ecosystem services.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide records indicate that the land surface has acted as a strong global carbon sink over recent decades1, 2, with a substantial fraction of this sink probably located in the tropics3, particularly in the Amazon4. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the terrestrial carbon sink will evolve as climate and atmospheric composition continue to change. Here we analyse the historical evolution of the biomass dynamics of the Amazon rainforest over three decades using a distributed network of 321 plots. While this analysis confirms that Amazon forests have acted as a long-term net biomass sink, we find a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation. Rates of net increase in above-ground biomass declined by one-third during the past decade compared to the 1990s. This is a consequence of growth rate increases levelling off recently, while biomass mortality persistently increased throughout, leading to a shortening of carbon residence times. Potential drivers for the mortality increase include greater climate variability, and feedbacks of faster growth on mortality, resulting in shortened tree longevity5. The observed decline of the Amazon sink diverges markedly from the recent increase in terrestrial carbon uptake at the global scale1, 2, and is contrary to expectations based on models6.
Estimation of soil carbon stocks in tropical wetlands requires costly laboratory analyses and suitable facilities, which are often lacking in developing nations where most tropical wetlands are found. It is therefore beneficial to develop simple yet robust analytical tools to assess soil carbon stocks where financial and technical limitations are common. Here we use published and original data to describe soil carbon density (gC cm−3; Cd) as a function of bulk density (g dry soil cm−3; Bd), which can be used to estimate belowground carbon storage using Bd measurements only. Predicted carbon densities and stocks are compared with those obtained from direct carbon analysis for ten peat swamp forest stands in three national parks of Indonesia. Analysis of soil carbon density and bulk density from the literature indicated a strong linear relationship (Cd = Bd × 0.49 + 4.61, R 2 = 0.96, n = 94) for soils with an organic C content >40%. As organic C content decreases, the relationship between Cd and Bd becomes less predictable as soil texture becomes an important determinant of Cd. The equation predicted soil C stocks to within 0.39% to 7.20% of observed values. When original data were included in the analysis, the revised equation: Cd = Bd × 0.48 + 4.28, R 2 = 0.96, n = 678 was well within the 95% confidence intervals of the original equation, and tended to decrease Cd estimates slightly. We recommend this last equation for a rapid estimation of soil C stocks for well developed peat soils where C content >40%.
[Extract] Old-growth tropical forests are, biologically, the richest real estate on Earth. Throughout much of the tropics, however, such old-growth forests are rapidly disappearing and are sometimes imperiled even within protected areas. This is elevating the need to conserve human-altered forests, especially those that have been selectively logged.