Government admits palm kernel animal feed contributes to rainforest destruction

In response to questions in Parliament about palm kernel imports, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, speaking on behalf of Prime Minister John Key, admitted that the production of palm kernel harms the environment saying, "Of course, it has some impact; the Government does not deny that."

Mr English also sought to deflect attention from Fonterra’s use of palm kernel by twice challenging Greenpeace to picket the nation's supermarkets over palm-oil products such as margarine, processed foods and soap.

Amazon felled for British plywood

You might not guess it flying west from Manaus in a small plane but the mighty Amazon forest is in jeopardy. Thirty years ago only one percent of the Amazon forest had been cut down. Today a quarter has disappeared.

Now previously untouched areas in the very heart of the forest are being felled, and, as elsewhere, most of the logging is illegal.

The logging takes place during the dry season, which has just begun. Later in the year when the rains come and the floodwater rises the logs are floated out of the forests and down the rivers to saw mills, many of them in Amazonia's biggest city, Manaus.

Tropical forests to aid society

Researchers working with forest community groups and policy makers in ten countries in Africa and Asia have developed a novel way to improve the flow of social and environmental benefits from tropical forests, according to an independent evaluation of an International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) project published on 17 August.

"With forests set to take centre stage in a new global deal to tackle climate change, there is a desperate search underway for proven ways to improve governance to ensure that forest resources are managed for the public good,” says project leader and head of IIED’s Natural Resources Group, James Mayers.

“That search should look at what’s been achieved by the Forest Governance Learning Group (FGLG). Its experience shows how to improve governance in ways that lead to tangible changes in policy with positive impacts on people who depend on forests.”

Where do forest carbon markets go from here?

For thousands of years, we have been planting and growing trees without difficulty. It's simple, and forest carbon business strategy can be, too. In fact, it's core to what I'm trying to teach the MBA/MS students in my course at the Erb Institute this semester: If the world's best available technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is employing the natural photosynthetic capacity of natural forest management, we can too.

But in many ways, we are all unable to see the forests for the trees.

Even though the global carbon market grew to $136 billion with 8.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide traded in 2009, less than 0.1 percent of that was based on removing existing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere using photosynthesis. While it is very important to engage in developing a low-carbon economy, it is equally important to remove existing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, especially since this is, in fact, a key to mitigating climate change.

Forest carbon offset projects -- whether planting trees, improving harvesting techniques, or not cutting trees -- have some unique characteristics that may make these assets a unique investment asset class. Investors can make debt and equity investments in forest carbon offset companies while they can also invest in spot and forward transactions of the mtCO2e produced by these forest carbon offset projects.