Fujitsu helps regenerate rainforest in Sabah

Borneo Rainforest

 SHAH ALAM:  Japanese technology firm Fujitsu have planted 1,000 trees at the Eco-Forest Park at Kinarut, Sabah, this year with the help of other groups in an effort to regenerate the tropical rainforest in Borneo.

Individuals from Fujitsu Group as well as the  Japanese embassy,  Kinabalu Japanese School, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and Sabah Forestry Development Authority planted the saplings from Nov 23-Dec 2.

Fujitsu Malaysia marketing director Michele Lum said the forest regeneration project focuses on replanting a specific indigenous rainforest species known as the Dipterocarp, which grows slowly but is being cut down rapidly for the manufacture of plywood.

Since 2002, Fujitsu has planted 37,500 Dipterocarp saplings at the 150-hectare Eco-Forest Park with the assistance of Sabah Forestry Development Authority and the Japan International Forestry Promotion and Corporation Center.

“The survival rate of nursery trees we planted is 48% as of June 2012. Our continual efforts can increase the survival rate by planting new seedings in the areas where trees have died,” said Lum.

She said the  project is part of Fujitsu’s long term corporate social responsibility commitment in Malaysia to preserve the environment and its rich biodiversity.

Lum added that Fujitsu has also started surveying the wildlife in the area periodically to assess the degree of biodiversity in the Eco-Forest Park as it regenerates.

The Sabah Forestry Development Authority is attempting to revitalise the rainforest with tree-planting technologies and technical support provided by the Japan International Forestry Promotion and Corporation Centre.

Source: Selangor Times

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Want to Save the Trees? Try Paying People Not to Chop Them Down.

By Thomas Kostigen

Far from the last knock of civilization in the Borneo jungle, I trudge along the Malaysian border with Indonesia. Here, together with two Iban tribesmen and a guide—all of us caked in mud and sweat—I come to a place where the familiar clamor of birds, monkeys, and bugs is being drowned out by the sound of a chain saw. We enter a clearing in which a teenager is hacking a felled tree, sawing it into pieces. Nearby, a backhoe levels a huge swath of land. Soon palms will be planted here, I’m told, and when harvested their oil will be sold on the world market. What I’ve come upon is just one scene in the massive global picture of deforestation. There are thousands and thousands of small operators hacking away at forests to profit from their bounty.

Deforestation is occurring at a rapid pace as the demand for housing and goods increases with world population growth, which is expected to climb 50 percent between 1999 and 2040, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Moreover, as appetites for food and biofuels—made with palm, corn, and other plants—rise, more land is needed to accommodate agriculture. About 32 million acres of forest are destroyed per year. That’s equivalent to about 50 football fields a minute. And the rate is expected to increase as demand grows.

Without forests, the world as we know it would cease to exist. Climate change has added new impetus to forest conservation efforts as we increasingly appreciate how efficiently forests sequester carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. In fact, deforestation is calculated to be the second-biggest man-made contributor to global carbon emissions after the burning of fossil fuels for energy use, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. This is because when forests are cleared, the carbon stored inside the trees is released, either immediately or over time; in addition, what had been a natural resource for capturing carbon—the trees themselves—disappears. Moreover, many people clear land by fire, which releases still more noxious gases. But there is an innovative and growing worldwide movement to get people to stop chopping down trees. The answer: Simply pay them not to do it.

Governments can try to conserve with stricter policies, activists can petition developers and farmers, and benefactors can buy land out of the goodness of their hearts (much like the investment firm Goldman Sachs, which recently purchased some 700,000 acres in Patagonia for conservation purposes). But to really put a dent in deforestation, people must have an incentive not to partake in it. (For-profit businesses such as large timber operators already have profit incentives.)

“Forests are like giant utilities providing ecosystem services to the world that we all benefit from but we don’t pay for.” That’s the way the U.K.-based nonprofit Global Canopy Programme puts it.

Global Canopy advocates a “cap and trade” program that hinges on ecosystem valuation. Simply put, a forest’s importance to the ecosystem would be valued in the form of credits. These credits could then be traded on markets. Forest owners would be given credits for the amount of carbon that they sequester, and those credits could be sold to those who are producing carbon in excess of a specified cap. The economic pressure of having to buy credits could effectively mitigate that “footprint” we hear so much about and arguably balance things out.

The United Nations has initiated a similar offset program called REDD (which stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation). REDD will work in one of two ways: either with forest owners’ earning credits that they can sell, as with Global Canopy, or by developed countries’ contributing to a fund that would in turn pay developing countries to keep their forests intact. The fund would act as a de facto arbiter of the developed world’s carbon emissions, allowing offending countries to offset their pollution through such payments.

The idea was introduced for inclusion in the Kyoto Protocol but was eliminated from the final provisions because of political concerns. Brazil, for example, formally opposed it, saying that accepting funds from industrial nations to reduce deforestation could limit the country’s future development options. Its sovereignty would be jeopardized, the argument went, because it would be controlled by the prices set by large carbon emitters—such as the United States, China, and the United Kingdom—who might contribute to the fund, in effect paying Brazil not to develop its forests.

If every hectare of preserved forest saves 200 tons of carbon and each ton of carbon is worth $10, then Indonesia could gain around $2 billion each year.

Since Kyoto, however, Brazil and other countries with large forest reserves, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, are warming to the idea of REDD. “Rather than seeing it as inhibiting their economic development, they are seeing the potential for big credits in their forests,” says William Laurance, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. He tells me that REDD would bring much bigger resources to the table than have ever been contemplated in global conservation, and that is opening the eyes of government ministers who had previously opposed such ideas. “What have been efforts valued in the millions, [REDD] would bring into the billions,” he says.

REDD would pay market prices for carbon storage. At the current market value for carbon, a hectare of rain forest, if left intact, could be worth anywhere from $400 to $8,000 or more. Since we are talking about millions of hectares of conservation, the sum adds up to quite a lot for the developing world. Laurance explains: “Suppose, for example, that the baseline deforestation rate for Indonesia is 2 million hectares per year, and the government manages to reduce this to 1 million hectares per year. If one assumes that every hectare of preserved forest saves 200 tons of carbon emissions and that each ton of carbon is worth $10 on the international market, then Indonesia could gain around $2 billion each year.”

Moreover, leases are now being contemplated so landowners retain land titles and receive “rent” payments (rather than selling their land to the fund). Not a bad way for a poor farmer to profit from his land.

REDD so far has commitments of hundreds of millions of dollars from a dozen developed countries. Not a large amount, to be sure, but a beginning. The program is scheduled to be formally voted on for all-nation adoption at next year’s U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen. Then the hope is that the billions will pour in.

REDD isn’t the only game in town. Many forest conservationists believe it will take a combination of efforts to save the world’s trees and, along with them, all the carbon they store.

Mark Plotkin, who heads the Amazon Conservation Team, says he is skeptical of progress being made on the national and international policy levels. “It needs to be addressed by grassroots efforts as well,” he says, explaining that by the time policy trickles down to the people to whom it applies, “it may be too late.” In addition, Plotkin believes that resources should be put toward creating attention and awareness and toward policies that make sense and are applicable to indigenous people.

When you see the squalor in which they live—under a mere tarp covering a small raised platform—and you hear that they receive less than one dollar per felled tree, you really have to think there must be a way to preserve the forests and at the same time aid the people who live off them. Indeed, as the sun begins to set and I turn away from the teenage loggers to begin my long hike out of the Borneo jungle and away from their desperate conditions, I realize this is not an option for them. But another type of dollar incentive might just give them a different way out.

REDD is one way to do it and may hopefully spark more widespread attention, laws, and policies that will further promulgate forest conservation. It gives credit where credit is due and pays out the ultimate dividend to us all: the air we breathe.

Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/20-want-to-save-the-trees

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Sabah’s rainforests to be source for seed bank project

SANDAKAN: The Malaysian Landscape Association has chosen Sabah’s rainforests as the source for its seed bank project.

The association’s corporate communications executive Siti Hafizah Mohd Zahrom said this was in view of the state’s rich biodiversity.

She said the association would seek the cooperation of the state government through the state forestry department and Sabah Foundation.

“The project is important for the conservation of the country’s forests and the seeds for research in future,” she said when met during the association’s visit to the forestry department, here yesterday.

The association, led by its president Tun Jeanne Abdullah who was accompanied by her husband and former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, also visited the Mangrove Discovery Centre which is being monitored by the Forestry Department at Sepilok Laut near here.

Siti Hafizah said the seed bank project was an idea they adopted from the millennium seed bank project based in Europe. — Bernama

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/04/18/sabahs-rainforests-to-be-source-for-seed-bank-project/#ixzz1tg79kY4I

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Another way to help save rainforests - Sabah ‘biobank’

A RM15 donation will go a long way in helping to restore and protect critical wildlife habitat and forest ecosystems in Sabah.

KOTA KINABALU: After years of watching their precious rainforests disappear due to logging and now oil palm plantations, the public is being asked to help protect what is left by contributing to a fund through a project set up by the government.

The Malua BioBank project is pioneering a new approach to conservation which recognises that deforestation is driven by the profitability of alternative land uses. It is a unique joint-venture between the Sabah Forestry Department, Yayasan Sabah and the Eco Products Fund.

For as little as RM15, anyone can help protect the rainforest in Sabah which is critical for the long-term survival of orang-utans, pygmy elephants, sun bears and other threatened wildlife species.

The amount, equivalent to US$5, saves 50 square metres of forest, about the size of a large garage, or you can contribute RM300 (US$100) to conserve 1,000 sq m.

This can be done within minutes using a new online tool developed by Malua BioBank, a Sabah-based project restoring and protecting critical wildlife habitat and forest ecosystems.

The new approach is being touted as a way for the public to take part in rainforest habitat restoration of the 34,000 hectare (80,000 acre) Malua Forest Reserve.

Malua BioBank said the facility allows contributors to personalise their gift through online certificates featuring orang-utans, sun bears, pygmy elephants, clouded leopards, rhinos and hornbills.

Malua BioBank manager, Merril Halley said that the Protect Malua site makes it easy for everyone to contribute towards rainforest conservation.

“This has to be one of most costs effective and enduring ways for individuals to contribute to the restoration and protection of prime rainforest real estate anywhere in the world.

“The new online tool also lets users learn about the importance of Malua and decide how much rainforest they would like to protect – in just one click.”

Contributions will be used to restore the degraded forest which was logged until a ban was placed on logging in 2008 by the Sabah government.

The funds will be used both for forest restoration activities over the next five years and 20% will go into the Malua Trust, an endowment that will fund protection of the site in perpetuity once the restoration work is completed.

Restoring the forest will not only provide food for wildlife, but estimates suggest it will also help lock up a massive additional eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 50 years, a statement from the project organisers said.

Innovative mechanism

Meanwhile, Sabah Forestry Department director Sam Mannan said agriculture, logging and crops like oil palm are huge and profitable sectors which cannot be stopped.

“We cannot expect to keep the rainforest standing unless there are financial drivers to do so. The Malua BioBank project works by putting a price on the region’s ecosystems,” Mannan said.

Malua’s Advisory Committee chairperson Cynthia Ong urged Malaysians, particularly in Sabah, to support the Malua BioBank, a ‘first of its kind initiative’ in the tropical rainforest world.

“Sabah has pioneered a ground-breaking and innovative mechanism for sustainable conservation financing and we would like to see individuals, families and corporations stepping up to support its success.

“The global conservation and financial worlds are watching us as we move forward with this initiative,” Ong, who is Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP) executive director, said.

To find out more about how you can help preserve this Malaysian rainforest, visit www.protectmalua.com

Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/03/26/sabah-biobank-way-to-help-save-rainforest/

Green Sabah says: Rainforests represent a store of living and breathing renewable natural resources that for eons, by virtue of their richness in both animal and plant species, have contributed a wealth of resources for the survival and well-being of humankind. However, the inner dynamics of a tropical rainforests is an intricate and fragile system. Everything is so interdependent that upsetting one part can lead to unknown damage or even destruction of the whole. The Malua BioBank Project is a brilliant initiative to help save the rainforests. Let us support this effort by donating RM15. A little help can make a big impact.

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