Forests to fall for food and fuel / Los bosques caerán por alimentos y combustible.

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Demand for land to grow food, fuel crops and wood is set to outstrip supply, leading to the probable destruction of forests, a report warns.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) says only half of the extra land needed by 2030 is available without eating into tropical forested areas.

A companion report documents poor progress in reforming land ownership and governance in developing countries.

Both reports were launched on Monday in UK government offices in London.

Supporters of RRI include the UK's Department of International Development (DfID) and its equivalents in Sweden and Switzerland.

"Arguably, we are on the verge of a last great global land grab," said RRI's Andy White, co-author of the major report, Seeing People through the Trees.

"It will mean more deforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, more climate change and less prosperity for everyone."

Rising demand for food, biofuels and wood for paper, building and industry means that 515 million hectares of extra land will be needed for growing crops and trees by 2030, RRI calculates.

But only 200 million hectares will be available without dipping into tropical forests.

Forest focus

The report foresees demand increasing further into the century.

It cites studies suggesting that "...if the current plateau in productivity continues, the amount of additional agricultural land required just to meet the world's projected food demand in 2050 would be about three billion hectares, nearly all of which would be required in developing countries."

According to UN figures, the world currently has about 1.4 billion hectares of arable land and about 3.4 billion hectares of pasture.

Some academics place their hopes in agricultural technologies including genetic engineering to boost crop yields.

But since the spectacular successes of the Green Revolution, advances have been slow. In some areas, yields are falling - a trend which is likely to be exacerbated by climate change.

However, eating into tropical forests to create extra agricultural land would, in turn, exacerbate climate change, with deforestation currently accounting for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Reform call

One of RRI's main conclusions is that reform of land ownership is crucial, if large-scale pillage of tropical forests is to be avoided.

The conclusion have been supported by DfID, whose minister Gareth Thomas was one of the speakers at the launch event.

"These new studies should strengthen global resolve to protect the property rights of indigenous and local communities who play a vital role in protecting one the most outstanding natural wonders of the world," he said.

DfID runs programmes in West Africa aimed at helping forest dwellers acquire the legal right to manage their land.

"It is clear that the dual crises of fuel and food are attracting significant new investments and great land speculation," said Andy White.

"Only by protecting the rights of the people who live in and around the world's most vulnerable forests can we prevent the devastation these forces will wreak on the poor."

But the second RRI report - From Exclusion to Ownership? - says progress in reforming ownership has been slow, with only a few countries such as Brazil, Cameroon and Tanzania handing over significant tracts to local communities.

Moves to curb climate change by preserving forests in developing countries could help, RRI concludes. But it also raises the question of who owns rights to the trees - the rich Western countries that want to fund carbon sequestration, or the people who live in the forest areas?

Sorting out ownership could not only help on the environmental front, but also remove reasons for conflict. RRI calculates that about two-thirds of the world's current violent conflicts are driven by land tenure issues.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Benn pledges tougher climate bill

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn says he is putting forward a tougher, more effective and more transparent bill to help tackle climate change.
There will be a new carbon trading scheme for large and medium-sized firms which will cut more than 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2020.

The Bill will make the UK the first country to put carbon emissions reduction targets into law.

He spoke as MPs called for a climate change minister to be appointed.

The Environmental Audit Committee wants a cross departmental climate change minister to drive government policy and who could attend Cabinet meetings.

Mr Benn said the government would amend its draft climate change legislation following a three-month public consultation and scrutiny by three parliamentary committees.

Aviation emissions

An independent committee on climate change would be set up that would advise on "five year carbon budgets" - part of a new commitment to carbon reduction

"We will use the bill to introduce carbon trading in further sectors," said Mr Benn.

"These powers will implement the new carbon reduction commitment - a trading scheme for large to medium size companies and public sector organisations.

"This scheme will save four million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2020 and help to spread responsibility for doing something about climate change right across the economy."

Other measures will include, asking the committee on climate change to report on whether the government's target to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 60% by 2050 should be strengthened further.

It will also be asked to look at the implications of including other greenhouse gases and emissions from international aviation and shipping in the UK's targets as part of this review.

The committee will be independent from the government, having its own chief executive and staff, and ministers will be required to seek its advice before amending the 2020 and 2050 targets in the Bill.

'Irresponsible'

However, Caroline Lucas, the Green Party's principal speaker, criticised the government's response to the three month public consultation on the draft Climate Change Bill and its target to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050.

She said that target was "woefully inadequate and too distant".

"It's criminally irresponsible to adopt a target that not only flies in the face of science," she said.

"Brown is as content as Blair to continue fudging and stalling on cutting on our emissions and so the UK continues to fail on climate change.

"We need a Climate Change Bill which sets binding emissions reduction targets of at least 6% a year to allow us to achieve cuts in UK greenhouse gas emissions in the region of 90% by 2030."

Climate change minister

But Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne gave Mr Benn's announcement a qualified welcome.

He said he was pleased to see that the government was now saying that other greenhouse gases should be included in the UK's emissions targets and not just CO2.

The Environmental Audit Committee, meanwhile, said a Climate Change and Energy secretariat, based in the Cabinet Office, could cut inter-departmental conflict.

Committee chairman, Conservative MP Tim Yeo said: "The UK must be equipped to meet both the challenge of a carbon-constrained world and the likely climate change impacts that will occur.

"It would be disastrous if bad planning policy meant that today's new housing developments become tomorrow's "climate slums," he said.