Sustainable forest management and global climate change: selected case studies from the Americas

Within the last two decades of the 1900s, it has become clear that forests are not just timber, waiting to be cut down. Ecologists have succeeded in informing others that the forests have other vital ecological functions, such as helping regulate the hydrological cycle, the nutrient cycle and the carbon cycle. Forests also help preserve the soil from being eroded away; forests are repositories of biodiversity and, as part of the hydrological cycle, they also prevent flooding. It is now fashionable for economists to refer to these ecological functions as non-marketed ‘environmental services’, which they attempt to value as if they were ordinary consumable goods and services. The international community too has at last recognized the problem of global warming and the latter has become the subject of a global accord, following the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The UN Framework Convention recognizes that the world’s forests will have an important role to play in implementing a global strategy for reining in the global emissions of carbon, which is the main factor in global warming. It is also appreciated that conservation and growth of the forests will ease other so-called ‘natural’ disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, and ice storms. Indeed, one fear is that, with global warming and the possible intensification of the activity of El Niño, the severity and frequency of these disasters may be on the increase. While not all the scientific evidence is yet 100 per cent conclusive on the magnitudes of future climate change, there is a rising consensus that ‘something’s afoot’. As a result, the international community has now accepted the precautionary principle, which means that the global community should err on the side of caution. This is of course a clear step forward, but much more could have been done. For example, the global community is nowhere near to the adoption of a Global Forest Convention, although the idea for such a convention has been broached many times. Such a Forest Convention would have clear guidelines for the sustainable management of the forests of the world. In the absence of such a Convention, it is imperative to produce careful and painstaking analyses on the importance of the world’s forests, and show how the forests may be harvested judiciously and in a manner that might be considered at least partially ‘sustainable’. This requires that the analysis take into account the role that forests might play in mitigating global warming, in preventing soil erosion, and in helping to minimize the loss of biodiversity. We hope that this book is an example of such an analysis of a number of dimensions in the sustainable management of forests. In order to reach this objective, this book draws on the expertise in the western hemisphere on the analysis of forests.

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