Replies to post #23994 on Sustainable Green Team Ltd. (SGTM)

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New York Times - Energy, the Environment and the Bottom Line - Robert Walzer


EPA How to put a price on trees?

What are a million live trees worth, anyway?


That sort of question will be increasingly studied after governments ratify a United Nations-sponsored accord to preserve forests to help curb climate change, as expected, as climate talks in Copenhagen wind down.

Anticipation of the accord, which is expected to result in billions of dollars of payments from rich nations to poor ones for saving or replanting their forests, has already prompted multilateral organizations, governments and environmental groups to begin measuring the monetary value of natural resources, including forests. Following the creation of the compensation program, called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, a flurry of additional studies is expected, and existing ones will be updated.

“We believe that valuation of these benefits is critical, in terms of informing public decision-making on land, water and natural resource use,’’ said Nik Sekhran, a senior technical advisor on biodiversity at the United Nations Development Program, in a telephone interview from Pretoria, South Africa. “This work is particularly important in terms of the REDD agenda under discussion in Copenhagen.’’

Mr. Sekhran said the U.N.D.P. will invest “heavily” to help countries evaluate their forests, and he expects the same from other multilateral lenders like the World Bank.

Under REDD, the carbon dioxide stored in forests would become a commodity to be bought and sold on a global market. Polluters, like electric companies, would be able to offset their emissions by buying credits for the carbon stored in forests. That money would go to developing governments, international organizations, local communities and others involved in forest protection programs.

Since 2008, a World Bank program armed with more than $100 million from donor countries has been working with 37 governments in Asia, Latin and Central America and Africa to help protect forests by assessing their value and helping to set up forest monitoring systems.

The United Nations Development Program has also been undertaking broad economic valuations of ecosystems, including such non-forest carbon-storing assets like peat bogs, in more than a dozen countries since 2007.

But many questions merit further study, Mr. Sekhran said. What are the most cost-effective ways to manage forests? When might more economic benefits be drawn by chopping down trees rather than preserving them, like in sustainable logging operations? How can incentives can be structured to benefit poor, forest-dependent communities?

“An enormous investment will be needed to build the capacities of countries to plan and enforce measures to reduce deforestation, and monitor results,’’ Mr. Sekhran said.

The U.N. has created the U.N. REDD Program to help developing countries manage their forests in preparation for REDD. Norway has provided the most aid for the effort, most notably donating $1 billion to the effort in Brazil and $100 million in Tanzania, Mr. Sekhran said.

Partly with funding from U.N.D.P., the Nature Conservancy, an American environmental group, recently completed five “Valuing Nature” studies in Bolivia, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and Venezuela and plans additional studies in other countries.

Luis Pabón, a senior policy adviser for protected areas at the Nature Conservancy, said that to determine forests’ approximate value, researchers used the known carbon storage properties of the various tree species and multiplied that by the number of trees and the average cost of carbon credits over the years, about $12.50.

The group conservatively assigned a $3.4 billion annual value to Mexico’s protected forested areas, for example. The figure included the value of the stored carbon, the water supplies it protects, and benefits to the tourism industry, Mr. Pabón said.