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This submission from Wetlands International to the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) presents a proposal to add "Avoided Drainage" and "Rewetting" as additional activities under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
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This submission on REDD+ from Wetlands International to UN Climate Conference (UNFCCC-SBSTA) presents Wetlands International's views on how to address the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and national forest monitoring systems. We focus on peatswamp forests, which has some specific characteristics and therefore need specific attention.
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It is shown that peatlands are characterized by specific biological diversity on the genetic, species, ecosystem, and landscape levels. They often present the best preserved areas, habitats, and shelters for biological species. Peatlands form a specific environment and play a significant part in the regulation of climate due to their participation in the water and carbon cycles. They are characterized by a wide range of biodiversity; spatial heterogeneity; and a particular structural and functional integrity, which is determined by the interrelations between excessive moisture, peatland vegetation, and peat. The scope of all the features mentioned presupposes a specific, often ambiguous, response of peatlands and their biodiversity to climate change.
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Wetlands International signed the letter of a coalition of European NGOs to the governments and Commission on banning carbon dense fuels. The NGOs ask to take all emissions in the product life cycle into account. This would imply a ban on fuels like biodiesel from palm oil and oils sands.
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At the COP17 Climate summit in Durban, Ministers decide whether or not it will be possible for developed countries to reduce their emissions by rewetting drained peatlands for meeting their emission reduction targets under a future climate agreement. Wetlands International, together with other non-profit organisations under the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, call for mandatory accounting for wetlands, because this would mean that a strong incentive will be created to stop the loss of wetlands.
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Peatlands play a critical role in climate regulation, storing twice as much carbon as the entire world’s forest biomass and emitting large amounts of carbon when drained. The UNFCCC provides significant opportunities to safeguard and restore these concentrated and important reservoirs of terrestrial carbon.
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The draft National REDD+ Strategy of Indonesia demonstrates that Indonesia has major ambitions to tackle its significant emissions from peatlands and conserve these unique ecosystems. This ambition is greatly welcomed and urgently needed. Some critical issues in the report, however, need to be addressed if Indonesia is to achieve its targets effectively and in a way that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.
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This policy submission to the UN Climate Conference (UNFCCC) provides input to methodological guidance to the policy mechanism REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Wetlands International specifically focuses on the issue of peatlands in relation to REDD in this submission, which differ in relevant aspects from forests on mineral soil.
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This policy brief provides background and recommendations with regard to REDD+ modalities and guidelines to be developed by the SBSTA and has been produced as input for the UN-FCCC meeting in Bonn, June 2011.
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This letter asks for attention for the global Land Use Change impacts caused by the European biofuel targets such as deforestation and wetland loss. The organanisations call for a so-called ILUC-factor; emissions to be added to the accounted emissions for producing biofuels.
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A Brochure on the importance of conserving the Peat Swamp Forest in Brunei. The Brochure mentions the major threats, solutions and what is being done to safeguard Brunei's peatlands.
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Communiqué of the Symposium in Edinburgh on 'Valuing Wetlands In a Chaning Climate' , 24 February 2011.
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The report provides sequenced maps and statistics on the area of peatlands converted for oil palm plantations in Sarawak from 2005-2010. It builds on forest cover change and plantation concession boundary mapping results from the ongoing project ‘Transparent Mapping for Sustainabe Oil Palm Plantation Development’. This document briefly reports on the results of project activities providing maps and associated statistics on the impact of oil palm plantations on forest and peatland conversion in Sarawak during the period 2005-2010.
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Forested tropical peatlands are rapidly being converted into plantations, causing large greenhouse gas emissions, in south-east Asia about 900 Mtons of CO2 each year. Reducing emissions from organic soils under (former) forests should be addressed in a REDD+ mechanism. REDD+ should also be expanded to other ecosystems with substantial carbon stocks, such as non-forested peatlands, provided that emission reductions are MRV-proof. The restoration of yet deforested and drained peatswamp forests and non-forested peatlands should also be eligible as activity under REDD+ and/or be prioritized as low carbon strategies under NAMA’s.
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Wetlands International supports an ambitious work programme that leads to comprehensive accounting. The current 3.4 voluntary activities of cropland management, grazing land management and revegetation are rarely selected as an accounting activity, while the emissions, and mitigation potential are both significant in many situations. Many countries have elected not to account for emissions and removals from forest management. Finally, there is currently no category that allows for the accounting of emissions and reductions from wetland management.
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