Center for International Forestry Research

Survey: “Climate Change and the Tropical Forestry Sector”

As part of CIFOR’s ongoing research on enhancing the role of tropical forests in climate change adaptation, this global survey seeks to gauge the extent to which climate change considerations are being incorporated in the tropical forestry sector. It was developed in order to learn about the attitudes to climate change by forest managers, researchers and policy-makers in the context of production forests and to assess their perceptions of risk and the response options available to cope with climate change. The results derived from this survey will be important for assessing actual and potential adaptive responses of the tropical forestry sector and may help to define further research avenues reducing the vulnerability of tropical forests managed for production purposes to climate change.

Please note that the survey is targeting tropical forestry for production of goods, be these natural or planted forests, and managed for timber and/or non-timber product extraction.

IMPORTANT: Most of the answers to be provided here relate to local and/or national conditions. Whenever you encounter the words “in your country” please provide your answers for the country in which you are most experienced with in case you are not currently working in your own country.

The following questionnaire consists of 4 sections:

  1. General Considerations about Forests and Climate Change

  2. Adaptation Measures in Forest Management for Production Purposes

  3. Institutional and Policy Approaches

  4. General information about the respondent

Page 1 of 4

A. General Considerations about Forests and Climate Change

A1.

Please rate how you agree or disagree with the following statements on a scale of 1 to 7.

strongly disagree -- strongly agree

Current climate change is driven by human activities.

I feel that climate change presents a serious threat to my personal life.

Within the next 20 years, climate change will diminish the productive capacity of tropical forests.

Climate change currently doesn’t present a serious threat to the productive capacity of tropical forests.

I feel that the impacts of climate change on tropical forests and their productive capacity are well understood.

There is sufficient information available that allows me to understand the local impacts of climate change on natural forests and their productive capacity.

There is sufficient information available that allows me to understand the local impacts of climate change on plantation forests and their productive capacity.

A2.

Are you aware of studies in your country suggesting that climate change is harming the forest and the forestry sector, currently and in the future?

A3.

Name three climate change impacts that you expect to negatively affect the productive capacity of tropical forests in your country within the next 20 years, if any.

A4.

Within the timespan of your work on forestry, have you observed any forest changes that you believe are attributable to climate change?

 

If YES, name no more than three changes.

 

If NO, have you observed changes which you believe are part of natural variation among years?

A5.

How would you rank climate change with the following other factors currently threatening the productive capacity of forests in your country?
Rank the following threats, with 1 as the most significant threat, with 2 as the second most significant threat etc. Exclude threats that are non significant (NS) in your country.

climate change

commercial agriculture

subsistence agriculture

mining, oil or gas

infrastructure, urbanization

unsustainable logging

forest pests, diseases, fires

A6.

Please rate how you agree or disagree with the following statements on a scale of 1 to 7

strongly disagree -- strongly agree

In my country, natural forests (destined for production purposes) have sufficient capacity to cope with current or expected climate change impacts under the existing management approaches applied.

In my country, planted forests (destined for production purposes) have sufficient capacity to cope with current or expected climate change impacts under the existing management approaches applied.

Specific management practices are available to assist natural forests (destined for production purposes) in coping with climate change impacts.

Specific management practices are available to assist planted forests (destined for production purposes) in coping with climate change impacts.

Scientific certainty of climate change impacts on production forests is sufficient to justify investment in implementing adaptation measures.

I feel that there is still plenty of time to implement adaptation practices in production forests.

Forests play an important role in helping society to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change (i.e. they are a “safety net” whether or not they are managed for production purposes).