PROPOSED changes to the rules of the Kyoto Protocol, the agreement that sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions, could cause widespread destruction of rainforests.
The problem arises because the treaty allows countries to meet their targets by planting forests that soak up carbon dioxide as well as reducing how much gas they emit.
The rules for the Kyoto Protocol were agreed in 2001. They say that new forests can only qualify as carbon sinks if they are planted on land that was cleared before 1989. But now several countries, including Canada and Japan, want to bring the deadline forward by 10 years. If their request is granted when the Kyoto signatories next meet in December, it would allow forests to be planted on land cleared as recently as 1999.
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Canada and Japan are keen to plant on land deforested since 1989, in Indonesia and Colombia respectively. While the new forests would be good for the environment and would soak up carbon, changing the deadline sends out the wrong message, according to Riccardo Valentini鈥檚 team at the University of Tuscia in Italy (Science, vol 299, p 1669). If landowners think the deadline is flexible, the consequences could be disastrous. 鈥淭here would be a perverse incentive to log forests, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, in the hope of gaining credit for replanting later,鈥� he says.
According to Valentini, a typical example is the Green Marathon forest project in Brazil, sponsored by French car company Peugeot. The scheme, which began in 1998, involves planting trees on 5000 hectares of former pastures. But satellite pictures show most of the land was deforested some time after 1992, says Valentini. 鈥淧lanting started only a couple of years after deforestation ended. 鈥淲e have to stop this kind of thing.鈥�
Although the project will trap 2 million tonnes of carbon, Peugeot says it is designed as a scientific study and will not be used to gain carbon credits.
There is certainly big money to be made in using forests as carbon sinks. The Noel Kempff Mercado project in Bolivia covers 600,000 hectares and is backed by British companies BP and Scottish Power, the American environmental organisation Nature Conservancy and the US and Bolivian governments. If the sponsors can sell carbon credits for the forest, they could make up to $200 million. This means landowners have a real incentive to speculate on being able to claim carbon credits for land they deforest, says Valentini.