18 September 2009

Financial Incentives to Preserve the Central African Rainforest

Podcast with John Flynn of USAID

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Narrator:

Today, the U.S State Department’s CO.NX podcasting team presents the fifth of our crowdsourced podcast series on development partnerships between the United States and Africa.

Joining us once again is John Flynn, director of USAID’s Central African Regional Program for the Environment, also known as CARPE.

Climate change is caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. To reduce those emissions, many governments are using financial incentives. A prominent example is the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme. This type of program is called cap and trade, where a limit is established on emissions and companies must pay a financial price if they exceed those limits or can receive income if they reduce emissions. The establishment of global frameworks that place a financial value on ecosystem services and conservation are taking a central role in climate change negotiations.

In addition to businesses like ecotourism, which generates revenues and provides incentives to communities to conserve forests, there are other ecosystem services are linked directly to avoiding greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions. Other schemes are being considered to place financial value on the role of forests in the water cycle.

Today, in part five of our conversation with John Flynn, Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Central African Regional Program for the Environment, we learn more about the role of financial incentives in the context of the carbon and water cycles in the central African rainforest.

John Flynn:

The other environmental service that we see coming up soon on the horizon has to do with the global climate change issue. We're sitting on a massive stock of carbon in central Africa. Depending on how the global framework develops, it's conceivable that that carbon standing could be sold in some kind of a trading scheme. There's many different programs that are being talked about and discussed as part of this global framework. The payment for those services, and especially if they could be organized in such a way that funding and financing could go down to local communities that are actually stewards of the forest, would be a powerful incentive for the conservation of the forest and for the improved livelihoods of those impoverished populations out there. This is the key in my view, and we have some ideas. We're developing management plans at all these community levels throughout six of the main forested countries. And they're looking forward to the day when they can really find a way to make some additional revenues from those forests other than just their daily survival. This is a big open question at this point, but without including some kind of scheme for tropical forest incentives, we will lose our forests. It's just a matter of time. And with potential catastrophic effects. Because just imagine if that carbon becomes emitted into the atmosphere. I mean it would be an accelerator in fact.

The other environmental service that we feel has great potential in the Congo Basin which is somewhat unique is water — fresh water. The Congo Basin has a massive river, called the Congo River; the discharge of the Congo River is 40,000 cubic meters per second. That's a lot of water — second only to the Amazon. But unlike the Amazon, the Congo Basin is at an elevation of about 1,300 feet. It flows to the city of Kinshasa, where from Kinshasa it falls 1,000 feet to the sea over 300 kilometers. But there's one particular point in there, where it falls about 300 feet within a distance of three miles. There's already a couple of hydro electric plants in there. There's the vision to create a massive hydroelectric system that would provide enough power for the entire continent and with enough to export even to Europe.

Now what's this got to do with ecosystem services, you might be thinking. One thing to keep in mind is that the hydrological cycle, in other words the cycle of the water — the rainfall and the evaporation and all that, is another one of the principal functions of the tropical forest. Without the forest, it would be a desert. Or it would be a very dry area. In fact, it was a desert during the last ice age, and you can see sand dunes and everything up to this day under the forest. It's quite fascinating. It's a very fragile place for water. It looks like it has abundant water and it does. We feel — it's somewhat speculation, we don't have all the scientific evidence to support this idea — but without enough leaf area for transpiration and evaporation, it's conceivable at least that you could reach a tipping point where the precipitation would just kind of stop. The basin would just drain out and dry out. That might be an alarmist view, but I think it's something to take seriously and to study. We've got a couple of programs going on to look at the Congo Basin, the hydrology of it and try to understand it better. One of the predictions of global climate change for Africa is that north and south of the basin become much drier. Most of the water supplies for human use and for industry in Africa is from surface water. There’s very few good aquifers in Africa. That’s why you see these women carrying water containers for miles and miles. If the models are proven to be correct and precipitation rally declines, we’re going to see a massive drying up and contraction of arable areas north and south of the equator. The Congo Basin may be the only place left where there’s ample water. This could be a very dangerous situation where everybody will be looking towards that to see how they can benefit and survive. So, that’s a little bit dramatic perhaps, but it’s out there and something we should be taking into account and we’re trying to look at that. If we can think of ways to create payments for that water, to go back to conserve the forest itself, it’s a win-win situation. 

Narrator:

Next time we’ll discuss the social impacts of forest conservation in African communities.

To learn more about U.S. partnerships with central Africa, visit carpe.umd.edu.

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