On February 8th, we posted Part 1 of a story on Reforest the Tropics. Protocol in the blog world says that stories cannot be too long, so we encourage you to read the first half before you continue.
In Part 1, we left Herster Barres in Costa Rica, working for the UN about forty years ago. Part of his work for the FAO involved bringing in over one hundred species of trees to see which had the best qualities for producing wood on farms. This knowledge would prove invaluable to him years later when he began mixing species in creating the new, sustainable carbon offset forests to combat the effects of global warming.
Let’s fast forward to October 19, 1993, and President Clinton’s Climate Change Action Plan. Its objective was to create a voluntary system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 level by 2000. This was based on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, one of the larger and more cumbersome, jumbo jets dealing with climate change. Dr. Barres received a phone call from the US Environmental Protection Agency, asking him to write a project that involved sequestering carbon in trees in the tropics. A mere two years later, his project was accepted, “with a handshake and no money.” It was accepted by both the US and Costa Rica as a Joint Implementation Project (JIP) in 1995.
I spoke with Professor Gordon Geballe (gordon.geballe@yale.edu), Yale School of Forestry, who said,” The very fact that it qualifies as a Joint Implementation Project makes it a positive contribution to what people are doing around the world. While it may be a small effort it is a major step in the right direction. It also provides income for researchers and farmers in Costa Rica, which is an important part of the formula.”
As of this posting, RTT has 59 sponsors, with 31 projects, involving 286 acres on eight different farms in Costa Rica. Dr. Barres estimates that a forest may sequester 25 tons of CO2 per 2 1/2 acres per year. Companies like Curtis Packaging get involved because they are committed to being more sustainable in their business practices and they invest in RTT because they consider it part of their responsibility to mitigate the impact of climate change.
February 19, 2009
0 Comments