Climate Change Regime and Its Implications to Forest Management Climate Change Regime and Its Implications to Forest Management Satoshi Akahori Forestry Agency, JAPAN Aug

Role of Forest Management in the Climate Change Regime UNFCCC  Article2: How Forest Management could contribute to ‘Ultimate Objective’?  Article 4.1(d): Sustainable forest management identified as part of commitment Kyoto Protocol  Article2.1(a)( ⅱ ): Required to implement further policies and measures on SFM to achieve emission reduction commitments under Article3

ARD and FM Current rules agreed at Marrakech  Art.3.3: ARD Mandatory  Art.3.4: FM voluntary, G-N, activity-based approach with cap  Provided incentives for SFM, enhancing contribution to mitigation benefit  Issues realized through implementation  Build on Kyoto, or.....?

Time-frame Perspective Commitment Period relatively short-term (for foresters) but need to have long-term perspective for mitigation Same goes for mitigation benefit in forest sector ❖ IPCC AR4 : mitigation benefit through SFM in the long-term Relatively longer rotation period with forestry  10years : Tropical Zone (fast-growing)  50years : Temperate Zone  100years or more : Boreal Zone Forest policy and measures with longer-time perspective, difficulty in dealing with quick changes

Source: FFPRI (Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan) SFM and Carbon Sequestration Emissions and removals by above- and belowground biomass pools HWP not included Theoretically, SFM would lead to either  Normal Forest (with artificial regeneration)  Extreme Stage (with natural regeneration) In the long-run, growth (=sequestration) would be diminished even with proper management scheme  Removals per year is assumed to decrease in most of the Annex Ⅰ countries in coming years

Expectation for the future framework Forest carbon sink would…  be properly recognized as climate change policy  continue to contribute to climate change mitigation  be properly accounted for, not benefiting/penalizing certain type/age structure of forest Incentive would continue to be provided to SFM to realize the potential of the sector

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