Interesting essay in Grist. Not directly applicable to national forests, but there are some insights here to consider when pondering call for setting aside national forest lands as “climate forests.”
The world is obsessed with forests’ climate benefits. Here’s the problem.
People depend on forests for food and income. Offset projects can kick them out.
“The conversation about how to manage forests “has been overtaken by the climate discussion,” said Daniela Kleinschmit, an author of the report and the vice president of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, the network behind the research. The result? Indigenous peoples are getting pushed out of their lands because of carbon offset projects. Native grasslands are getting turned into forests, even though grasslands themselves are huge, overlooked reservoirs of carbon. And offset projects in forests, more often than not, fail to achieve all of the emissions benefits their backers had promised.”
What’s interesting to me about this is that forest policy seems to have become a subfield of “environmental” policy based on the professors interviewed. I think the public misses a lot when folks like Grist publish stories that talk about forests globally and belabor what should be obvious:
“Prakash Kashwan, an environmental studies professor at Brandeis University, said that locals can use resources from trees, at least on a smaller scale, without hurting a forest’s ability to sequester carbon, according to his research. Studies have demonstrated that involving Indigenous peoples and local residents in the process of decision-making is key to better social and environmental outcomes — including carbon sequestration.
“Allowing communities a say in how forests are managed is absolutely vital to more effective, lasting, and just forest governance, and for tackling these big global challenges that we face,” Miller said.”
Of course, giving them “a say” and “involving them in the process of decision-making” can take many forms, and people within communities may disagree.
If you follow the link to the comment about “studies,” here is what that article says: “Where people depend upon forest resources for a range of livelihood benefits, like firewood, timber, food, various things, they often have an incentive to take care of those forests.” This research did not include North America. The U. S. land tenure system does not recognize such subsistence activities on our federal lands (except for native treaty rights), and I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that dependency on the forest for profits or jobs necessarily leads to the same kind of outcomes.