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| Mike McCall, associate professor at the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), has recently signed a contract to publish his book, `Participatory Geographic Information Systems: Placing geospatial information and technologies at the service of local people,' which is slated for release end of 2009 (Foto: Gijs van Ouwerkerk) |
Two global-geographers and associate professors, Dr. Margaret Skutsch from the University of Twente (UT) and Dr. Mike McCall from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), with their colleagues in UT, ITC, Nepal, India, Tanzania and Senegal, have been collectively merging research efforts and sharing knowledge for the `Kyoto: Think Global, Act Local' Project over the last four years.
Skutsch says the project, sponsored by the Netherlands Development Cooperation (DGIS), resulted from research that she has conducted for many years. One of the current problems facing a developing country that leads to global warming is the rapid loss of forest through deforestation and forest degradation (loss of carbon density within the forest).
One of the topics being discussed at the last United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) in Bali, at which both Skutsch and McCall attended, is the possibility of Community Forest Management as a carbon mitigation option. Local villagers in developing countries, with only a primary school educational level, but who are already involved in local forest management, can be trained to measure the carbon stock changes in their own forest by the use of simple handheld computers with GIS/GPS technology as an integral part of managing their own forests. In compensation for their efforts, international funds can be tapped to make money payments for carbon credits earned.
The plan, with supporting research, holds the promise of tackling three main modern-day conundrums: reducing global warming, preserving biodiversity and the icing on the cake, paying poor people in developing countries to sustain their own forests.
Skutsch sees the light at the end of the tunnel, `Our basic underlying argument is: if there were some mechanism to actually pay even just a few dollars a year per hectare of forest to these kinds of local communities to protect and manage their forest and to reduce their carbon emissions. This would be enormously cost-effective from the point of view of climate change. It would be an enormous income earning for these people who live in the forest.'
According to a recent paper in the African Journal of Ecology, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that 20-25% of current annual carbon emissions result from the loss of tropical forests. Skutsch says, `The loss of the forest is twenty percent of the problem. If we can reduce the amount of deforestation by even a quarter, which is an enormous amount, that would save 5 percent.'
McCall's fundamental task at the ITC is developing the technologies to monitor and map forest with cost-effective technologies. He says, `One of the problems of this whole approach is the measurement of carbon or the monitoring of carbon change in the forest.' Satellite images he says are expensive and the pictures, even with high-resolution images, are not yet refined enough, and then there is the natural element of cloud coverage and the inability of these satellites to detect what is under the tree canopy.
The second method, conventional in approach, is to send professionals (trained foresters) to perform the samplings and measurements. Yet this solution, he thinks, is too expensive to implement and will burden local economies.
McCall says, `Our approach is to try to reduce the cost of measurements (transaction costs) through having local villagers monitor their own forest.' He adds, `It's a very simple idea-not rocket science.'
This innovative concept may be simple in practice and theory, but the contribution may help to solve the alarming rate of carbon loss that is associated with global warming.
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| The department of Technology and Sustainable Development, including Dr. Margaret Skutsch, will be conducting an all-day symposium on April 10 to mark the 25th Anniversary of the International Course on Rural Energy Planning (ICREP). The symposium will look at the role of Northern Institutions, such as the UT and ITC, and how they contribute through education to building the capacity of the South to respond to the transitions for developing sustainable energy systems. To be put on the mailing list, contact Ms. Barbara van Dalm at [email protected]. (Foto: Gijs van Ouwerkerk) |
Skutsch, on the side of developing international policies, and McCall, working towards refining technologies, create a dynamic-duo together to voice possible solutions in the climate debate.
Research efforts for the Kyoto project have been conducted at 25 sites in six countries in the world. The Kyoto Project was recently given the nod of approval to continue for another year, extending their efforts to the middle of 2009. Skutsch says, `We should be able to draw some clear conclusions on the amount of carbon that is saved as a result of communities managing their own forest as well as the costs of executing Community Carbon Management.'
