Earth Today | Forests key to climate, biodiversity loss response
Published:Thursday | December 29, 2022 | 12:26 AM
FROM TREE replacement to helping people see trees as a business, Jamaica’s Forestry Department is intent on sustainable forest management and conservation as a part of the answer to climate change and biodiversity loss.
“From our standpoint, over the coming months, our focus will be on mitigating the impact of development through the establishment of more urban tree cover. Where there have been tree losses, we will be working to replace multiples,” revealed Ainsley Henry, chief executive officer for the Forestry Department and the island’s conservator of forests.
“We [also] intend to have demonstration or pilot projects in major urban centres across the island. Forestry as a business is also a critical focus and hence our efforts to build, expand and enhance the sustainability of the sector will also take centre stage,” he added.
CLIMATE SUMMIT
Henry’s comments come in the wake of the latest United Nations (UN) Climate Summit (COP27), held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last month, when the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP) was launched.
According to information out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the FCLP has as its goal “to unite action by governments, businesses and community leaders”.
“The partnership aims to boost action to implement a commitment made by over 140 countries at COP26 in Glasgow last year to halt forest loss and land degradation by 2030 and to convert ambition into results on the ground,” reads a November 14 UNFCCC news report on the COP.
Jamaica was among the more than 140 countries to agree to the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use of COP26. The declaration saw leaders pledging to work together to “facilitate the alignment of financial flows with international goals to reverse forest loss and degradation, while ensuring robust policies and systems are in place to accelerate the transition to an economy that is resilient and advances forest, sustainable land use, biodiversity and climate goals”.
Henry’s comments are also made on the heels of the just concluded conference of the Convention on Biodiversity (COP15), held in Montreal, Canada, and from which a sweeping set of goals and targets to save nature have come.
NATURE GOALS
Those goals include that “Biodiversity is sustainably used and managed and nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, are valued, maintained and enhanced, with those currently in decline being restored, supporting the achievement of sustainable development, for the benefit of present and future generations by 2050”.
Earlier this month, Henry led his team – in collaboration with the European Union – in the inaugural staging of the National Forestry Conference, with its focus on forests as a business. They have also been busy with a number of other activities.
“Our minister (Senator Matthew Samuda) announced in his State of the Nation address to the Senate that we have identified more than 200 trees that may be impacted by the expansion of three roadways in Kingston. He also mentioned our intent to plant up to 3,000 to replace them,” Henry said.
“In fact, if you visit our head office, you will see more than 100 saplings in pots – some up to 12 feet tall which will be used resulting in a quick replacement of cover – cover we hope to establish before the trees that may be impacted are impacted,” he added.
Climate change presents varied risks and threats to especially vulnerable small-island developing states such as Jamaica and others of the Caribbean. They include heat stress and the increased prevalence of diseases such as dengue due to global warming, which is driven by greenhouse gas emissions; and extreme hurricane and drought events.
Forests represent an important part of the answer, given their value as carbon sinks, that is, as storehouses for carbon dioxide which would otherwise be left in the atmosphere as fuel for a changing climate.