Tropical Forests and Climate Change

This CFAN Forestry Issues paper gives an overview of global climate change, its causes, its impact on forests, and how forests can help to mitigate it.It concludes that forest-related interventions can have numerous positive spinoff effects apart from carbon sequestration and storage including:improved supply of wood products better management of protected areas increased agricultural production through agroforestrycreation of employment opportunities in rural areasimproved environmental management.On this basis the paper recommends:greater integration of climate change initiatives with other ongoing sustainable development programsdonors and recipient countries alike to adopt an effective coordination mechanism to avoid waste and duplication of financial resourcessecuring the support of the governments, the local communities, and the populace at largeparticipatory approaches in planning and implementationbenefit sharing Constraints include weak governmental and non-governmental institutions inadequate higher education, training, and researchdemand for basic human needs of local populations pressure for additional agricultural land and consequent deforestationhigh cost of plantation establishment and maintenanceecological issues related to planting monocultures, reducing biodiversity, and the effect of using agrochemicals in tree plantationslack of appropriate financing