Research programmes
Tropical forests and climate change mitigation with a focus on forest
degradation
Land-use change through deforestation is a significant source of carbon
emissions and an active contributor to global warming. Deforestation contributed
from 1.6 GtC to 5.9 GtC per year in the 1990s (IPCC 2007). This represents about
1/5 of current global carbon emissions, more than is produced by the
fossil fuel-intensive global transport sector (IPCC 2001a, 2001b; Stern 2006).
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Enhancing capacity of local people and institutions to manage forest
ecosystems
Managing forest ecosystems has been a way of life for many developing and
third world countries, as many of their inhabitants depend on forest ecosystems
for their day to day survival. Forest ecosystems provide them with direct
benefits such as timber, food, shelter, medicine, fuelwood, sustainable supplies
of clean water, and fresh air as well as indirect benefits as hunting grounds
for providing inhabitants with a balanced diet. Forest ecosystems also perform
many services on people’s behalf; providing clean water to rivers, lakes and
dams, holding soils together, storing carbon, and providing habitats for much of
the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity.
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Optimising income generation from forest goods and services
Since time immemorial local people have depended on natural resources for
their sustenance. They have developed unique and ingenious ways of adapting to
their environment to provide for their needs while simultaneously supplying
goods and services for their communities and the wider national and global
populace. Inherent in the lifestyle of local peoples is the innate ability to
guarantee that their activities ensure benefits for current and future
generations. Recently, the scale and scope of their activities have attained
greater acknowledgement and importance on global environmental and
socio-economic agendas.
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Impacts of climate change on the practices and livelihoods of local people
Climate change constitutes an additional burden to poverty, disease,
illiteracy, weak institutional capacity, war, politically unstable government,
poor infrastructure and other global environmental change issues (e.g. land-use
change, land degradation, desertification, biodiversity loss, etc.) limiting
development in several ACP countries and preventing them from realising major
global targets like the millennium development goals. It is not just poor, rural
people who are affected by climate change, but also wealthy urban elites, such
as those with homes and holiday cottages on coasts or floodplains. There is a
strong case for ‘putting the vulnerable first’.
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