By Karen Foerstel 

September 26, 2008

The Nature Conservancy this week joined an historic gathering of conservation groups, humanitarian organizations, government leaders and private businesses to call for the creation of national and international policies to make forest protection a key tool in the fight against climate change and global poverty.

Among the dignitaries attending the event, which was hosted by the Avoided Deforestation Partners , were Nobel laureates former Vice President Al Gore and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, as well as the President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo.

"A Football Field a Second"

“We’re losing one football field’s worth [of forests] every second,” Gore told the gathering. “One of the most effective things we can do in the near term to address the climate crisis is to protect the world's tropical forests.”

Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of all the climate-changing carbon emissions released into the atmosphere each year — more than from all the planes, trains and automobiles on Earth.

But current international policy, including the Kyoto Protocol, does not recognize the protection of forests as a source for carbon emission reductions.

The gathering, which took place in New York as world leaders converged for the U.N. General Assembly, brought together the heads of such groups as The Nature Conservancy, Oxfam, WWF, CARE, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Mercy Corps, Conservation International and World Vision.

Together, the organizations called for a new climate accord that will recognize forest protection in carbon-trading markets and provide the financial incentives developing countries need to lower their emissions and stop deforestation.

"We Are in This Together"

In the next few years, the developing world will produce more climate-changing emissions than all industrialized nations combined — with deforestation serving as the primary source of emissions in many of these countries.

“We are in this together,” said Maathai. “There is a new realization among forest countries that they want to be part of this. We must help them understand that it makes more economic sense to make sure [forests] are standing.”

Along with fighting climate change, Maathai and others said protecting the world’s shrinking forests is essential to combating global poverty.

“Climate change is making the delicate balance in the lives of poor people even more delicate and more precarious,” said Helene Gayle, President and CEO of CARE, United States. Deforestation is “reducing access to clean and safe water, increasing health risks, increasing the frequency and intensity of conflicts over natural resources.”

Attendees at the event said action must be taken immediately and called on the United States to lead efforts to support the policies and financial incentives needed to help developing countries protect their forests.

A Market Solution

“Time is not on our side,” said Mark Tercek, President and CEO of The Nature Conservancy.

The Conservancy supports the creation of carbon trading markets that allow developing nations to sell credits attained through forest protection, thus giving poor countries the chance to generate income from protecting forests rather then destroying them.

These policies can make sure healthy forests not only combat climate change, but also provide the food, water and economic resources local people rely upon for survival.

“There are tremendous [economic] pressures to cut forests,” Stuart Eizenstat, former US Ambassador and the U.S. lead negotiator on the Kyoto treaty, told the gathering. “We must have the economic incentives to allow these countries to say ‘We don’t want to cut our forests.’”

He added that by protecting forests, “We can reduce emissions and poverty at the same time.”

Karen Foerstel is senior marketing and media manager for The Nature Conservancy covering issues related to climate change.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Erika Nortemann (Al Gore, Mark Tercek and Wangari Maathai);Scott Warren (logging in the area of the Paiva Castro Reservoir).