The Need for the Review of the UNFCCC’s Forest-Related Terms, Definitions and Classifications
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Climate mitigation and adaptation
Civil Society Submission to the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights.
Allowing plantations to be classed as forests for the purpose of enabling engagement with emerging carbon trading markets will create perverse incentives that actually finance conversion of natural forests by wood / paper product and oil palm plantation companies with the associated significant loss of biodiversity. The conversion of natural forests, whether to wood plantations or oil palm plantations, creates substantial greenhouse gas emissions, with up to 80% of carbon lost to the atmosphere depending on the type of forest ecosystem and the type of plantation which replaces it.
Author(s): The Australian Orangutan Project, The Humane Society, International Rainforest Foundation UK, The Wilderness Society, Wetlands International, The Ape Alliance, Global Witness
