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Title: How much would REDD+ boost Philippines forest budget?
Date: 05-Oct-2012
Category: Research Paper
Source/Author: Elizabeth Kahurani, ASB
Description: REDD+ could provide a huge financial boost to forest conservation plans in developing countries like the Philippines. A new study titled, Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus (REDD+) in the Philippines: will it make a difference in financing forest development? shows that if the country was to reduce the rate of forest degradation by 5 to 15% and at the same time increase reforestation rate by 1.5% annually, Philippines could approximately sequester up to 60million tonnes of carbon by 2030.

REDD+ could provide a huge financial boost to forest conservation plans in developing countries like the Philippines. A new study titled, Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus (REDD+) in the Philippines: will it make a difference in financing forest development?  shows that if the country was to reduce the rate of forest degradation by 5 to 15% and at the same time increase reforestation rate by 1.5% annually, Philippines could approximately sequester up to 60million tonnes of carbon by 2030.

Going by the current rate of US$ 5 per ton carbon, this would translate to US$ 97 to 417 million carbon credits per year which would make a huge difference to the country’s forest budget that stood at US$ 46million in 2005 only to fall to US$ 12million in 2006.

The amount of carbon benefits the country would accrue was arrived at through various forest degradation and mitigation scenarios. First, a baseline scenario was established using the rate of change in carbon emissions from various forest types in the Philippines. The change rate, which was based on recent FAO data revealed an increase in the country’s forest area. Data on forest degradation trends was compiled from a number of literature and it indicates significant biomass reduction, a pointer that degradation could account for most of Philippines carbon emissions.

After obtaining the rate of carbon emissions, a projection of up to the year 2030 was made from an estimation of the 2010 forest area. The other scenario involved options where REDD+ mitigation was implemented by either reducing forest degradation at a rate of 5, 10 and 15 % annually and an increase in the rate of reforestation from the current 0.7 % to 1.5 % per year. The benefits of implementing REDD+ were arrived at by obtaining the difference between carbon benefits accrued from a baseline scenario and those garnered from REDD+ mitigation scenarios. 

The results emphasize that a huge potential lies in reducing forest degradation as more carbon is captured this way compared to when new plantations are established. According to Rodel Lasco, lead author in the study, countries with little deforestation but significant forest degradation could therefore potentially benefit from the emerging carbon market.

By estimating the financial value of implementing REDD+ in the Philippines, this study, which was conducted by researchers working with the EU funded REDD_ALERT (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation through Alternative Land uses) project, provide incentives for the country to scale-up ongoing projects, and for the international community to agree and establish clear modalities and guidelines of enforcing REDD+.

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Mainstreaming climate resilience into government: The Philippines’ Climate Change



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