

Growing on trees: A profitable rainforest - chaostheory
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13684132

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russell
My Brazilian ex's relatives own a plantation that grows sustainable mixed
exotic hardwoods used for flooring and construction. This isnt the same as
undisturbed rain forest, but it sure beats the practice of destroying
everything to get a few valuable trees. It also uses much less acreage,
because only the valuable trees are grown. In contrast, current practice turns
the destroyed forest to cattle grazing

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spoiledtechie
Do they replant the trees each year or do they cut off branches for the
hardwood?

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russell
They cut down and replant a certain percentage each year. The trees are quite
a bit smaller in diameter than the rain forest giants, so the life cycle is
much more like normal tree farming practices. In the rain forest, the giants
form a canopy that shades the forest floor, so the floor is much more open
than you would expect. Mostly there arent any branches except at the crowns,
100-150 feet off the floor. The seedlings cant survive in the gloom until a
giant falls. My guess is that a plantation with its smaller trees can grow
much more wood than an equivalent area of giants.

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gchpaco
Quite. The temptation is that those rain forest giants represent a significant
one-time windfall; this is what led to the unsustainable forestry practices
that denuded most of England of its forests and nearly did it in for the US.

International agreements like CITES, if memory serves, regulate and in some
cases outright prohibit certain forms of lumber (the most notorious examples
are Brazilian rosewood and Cuban mahogany, both of which were tremendously
important hardwoods a century ago and are nearly extinct now), and efforts
like FSC certification seem to be helping things out somewhat--one can
actually buy lignum vitae now, relatively cheaply for an exotic. But I imagine
we still have a long way to go.

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sethg
How do the trustees of this forest sell carbon sequestration? Do they just say
"this forest sequesters a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, and for
$10/ton, we will associate those good works with your company's name"?

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Alex3917
There have been very accurate satellite measurements of rainforest
deforestation since the 70s. We know how many acres are being destroyed each
year from across the world. Because historical measures are so good, we are
able to know if the rates of deforestation are increasing or decreasing. If
countries are able to decrease their rates of deforestation from the
historical baseline then they get carbon credits under certain cap-and-trade
models. They are then able to sell these credits at auction.

Because preserving an acre of rainforest is far less expensive than reducing
CO2 in more traditional ways, we can reduce the total amount of CO2 in the
atmosphere for less money than it would otherwise cost.

