
Liberia signs 'transformational' deal to stem deforestation - fillskills
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29321143
======
WildUtah
No rainforest in going to be preserved in a nation that continues on a path of
exponential growth of population like Liberia. The nature of exponential
growth is that it always looks sustainable until the catastrophe hits and
everything collapses and there's nothing that can be done to save anything and
probably mass starvation.

The fertility rate is 5.16 in Liberia which corresponds to doubling the
population about once every 25 years. Then if fertility ever drops back to
steady state (2.1), you double the population at least twice more because of
population momentum.

The hopeful factor in Liberia is that the fertility rate is dropping. IT was
5.85 in 2000. If it doesn't drop fast, no payment for forests will help. If it
does drop fast, the locals will enjoy their environment and work to preserve
it.

Right now Liberia has about the population and land area of Virginia, which
means it's already overpopulated. Around mid-century it will have at least
quadruple the population. Then -- if fertility drops very fast down to
replacement level -- it will quadruple again. That will be sixteen times the
density of Virginia. And that is the best case scenario.

~~~
berberous
> Then if fertility ever drops back to steady state (2.1), you double the
> population at least twice more because of population momentum.

What? Can you explain this? Sorry if it's obvious, but I can't seem to grasp
what you mean by population momentum.

~~~
WildUtah
Suppose the population has been growing at a rapid clip, like in Liberia.

Then you will have a situation where the grandparent generation will have less
population than the parents and the parents will be fewer than the children,
e.g.:

2 80 year olds 6 60 year olds 15 40 year olds 40 20 year olds 100 babies
\-------- 163 people

One woman 80 year old had six babies with her husband. The three women in the
next generation bore 15 babies. With a fertility rate around five, you will
have a population pyramid where the babies outnumber the 80 year olds by about
50 to 1.

Then if fertility suddenly drops down to replacement level, the babies will
eventually grow up to be 80 year olds in a country where the size of each
generation is equal, e.g.:

100 80 year olds 100 60 year olds 100 40 year olds 100 20 year olds 100 babies
\----- 500 people

So there's one more quadrupling (approximately) built in to the system even
after the birth rate gets under control. Since the birth rate might not get
under control until the resources run out in famine, war, or epidemic, we may
be looking at a situation where high fertility countries are destined to have
not only more people than they can support, but four times as many as they can
support and chronic disasters for humanity. The only relief is thinking ahead
and family planning, which is not necessarily our strong point as a species.

------
icebraining
A related story: back in 2012, Equador had asked countries to pay $3.6 billion
for them not to drill under the rainforest:
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ecuador-asks-
world...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ecuador-asks-world-to-pay-
to-keep-yasuni-oil-underground/)

It wasn't successful:
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/23/ecuador-a...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/23/ecuador-
amazon-yasuni-national-park-oil-drill)

~~~
threeseed
Australia is proposing something similar:

[http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-
news/julie-...](http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julie-
bishop-rejects-un-request-to-strengthen-australian-climate-
targets-20140919-10j5kk.html)

It never ceases to amaze me that political parties who fundamentally believe
in the importance of "the market" don't trust it for reducing emissions.
Hypocrisy at it's worst.

~~~
Retric
Cap and trade's first step is to hand out billions of dollars worth of
emissions credits to major polluters which they can then resell. After that
it's similar to a strait tax if more costly and less efficient, but you can
see the appeal.

~~~
Alex3917
Cap and trade is more efficient than a tax, that's the whole point of it --
allowing the market to find the least costly way of reducing total emissions
below the cap, as opposed to forcing everyone to reduce emissions by the same
percentage regardless of the cost.

As for handing out billions of dollars of emissions credits to current
polluters that they can then sell, this is completely false. The way the
initial allocation works under most proposals is to give current polluters
credits to cover part of their current emissions upfront. Then if they reduce
their emissions beyond their allocated emissions they can sell the excess
credits. This is what makes cap and trade so efficient, there are huge profits
to be made by companies that can create technologies to reduce emissions the
most efficiently.

Then over time the total cap decreases, and the amount of credits allocated to
existing polluters also decreases, so that all companies will have to buy
whatever credits they need at a yearly auction or whatever.

~~~
bradleyjg
>> Cap and trade is more efficient than a tax, that's the whole point of it --
allowing the market to find the least costly way of reducing total emissions
below the cap, as opposed to forcing everyone to reduce emissions by the same
percentage regardless of the cost.

A tax doesn't force everyone to reduce emissions by the same amount. If
cutting emissions is less profitable than paying the tax, you pay the tax,
otherwise you cut emissions.

>> As for handing out billions of dollars of emissions credits to current
polluters that they can then sell, this is completely false. The way the
initial allocation works under most proposals is to give current polluters
credits to cover part of their current emissions upfront. Then if they reduce
their emissions beyond their allocated emissions they can sell the excess
credits. This is what makes cap and trade so efficient, there are huge profits
to be made by companies that can create technologies to reduce emissions the
most efficiently.

How about if they just shut down their production and sell the credits? Giving
the credits to incumbents is a large barrier to entry for competitors and a
give away. If you are going to have credits rather than a tax, the credits
should be auctioned.

~~~
icebraining
_How about if they just shut down their production and sell the credits?
Giving the credits to incumbents is a large barrier to entry for competitors
and a give away. If you are going to have credits rather than a tax, the
credits should be auctioned._

How would the auction solve the problem?

~~~
bradleyjg
I guess it wasn't entirely clear, but I was referring to repeated auctions for
limited time permits (e.g. annual). That puts new entrants on an equal footing
after a relatively short period of time.

------
tribaal
Well, they will help them build capacity to protect forests, and prevent new
logging licenses to be granted, as well as place more forests in a "protected"
status.

It's not like they just ask to stop and give them cash, like the headline
suggests.

------
sauere
Prediction: money will be paid, cutting down trees will continue

~~~
azernik
If trees keep getting cut down, the payments will stop.

FTA:

The country agrees to place 30% or more of its forest estate under protected
area status by 2020. It will also pilot direct payments to communities for
protecting the forest. Ultimately the Norwegians will pay for results, with
independent verification that trees remain standing.

------
nakedrobot2
I love the idealism of this but: 1) the price is far too low to have any
effect, I am guessing. 2) won't this money go straight into someone's pocket?
3) how on earth do they expect this to be enforced?

~~~
Skinney
We do this in several other countries already. We only actually pay the money
if they meet certain goals. Currently we have 4 billion NOK (632 million
dollars) still standing in a bank account, because the countries we intended
to pay the money to hasn't met the goals we set as a pre-condition. Then again
we paid 3 billion NOK (474 million dollars) last year, so it does work to some
extent.

~~~
k3oni
This is an interesting approach of which i never heard before. Is there
somewhere where i can see a list of the other countries?

Edit: Found it on the gov. site . The one related to this article also
includes Peru: [http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/smk/press-center/Press-
rele...](http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/smk/press-center/Press-
releases/2014/Norway-launches-climate-and-forest-partnerships-with-Peru-and-
Liberia.html?regj_oss=1&id=767632)

------
lunarcave
For context, this is about 0.00021% of the entire norwegian reserve [1].

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/24/us-norway-
oilwealt...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/24/us-norway-oilwealth-
idUSBRE92N07M20130324)

~~~
ezhux
for context: Russia has 12 times more proven oil reserves
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves)).
Now imagine russians in this situation.

~~~
kozlovsky
Well, Russia just wrote off $32 billions of Cuba debt[1]. I'm not telling that
this is the same thing, but still...

[1]: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-11/russia-writes-
off-9...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-11/russia-writes-off-90-of-
cuba-debt-as-putin-meets-castros.html)

~~~
ezhux
that's really unusual for Russians. Cuba has plenty of peninsulas waiting be
annexed... :)

~~~
toomuchtodo
It was supposed to be a snub at the US, as we recently renewed trade sanctions
against Cuba.

------
guard-of-terra
The problem here is: cutting down trees creates jobs; receiving 150m doesn't.
You still have to distribute them somehow and make these people figure out
what to do.

~~~
imaginenore
Let's be realistic. This is Liberia. This money will not be distributed to the
workers.

~~~
EStudley
I don't think he means the money, I believe he meant distribute the workers.

More likely than not a majority of the people cutting trees down in Liberia
are going to continue cutting trees whether the government wants them to or
not.

------
yawz
Where does the demand go? Not only one has to pay Liberia and various parties
not to cut trees but one also needs to reshape the demand (for trees) or make
sure that the demand is redirected to renewable resources and/or to tree
plantations. To me, it seems to be the hardest challenge.

------
ljd
It's interesting that it's seen as aid.

If countries like Norway feel that standing trees provide a service to them,
they _should_ pay to keep them up.

It's not charity, the trees are providing a marketable good by processing CO2
emissions.

While I'm not an environmentalist, I do believe in markets as a way of solving
larger problems and I think it would be interesting if a market was built on
resource preservation.

For instance, if a type of tree processes more CO2, they should be worth more
than one that does not and that can be expressed in whatever this marketplace
would be. If I had more connections at a government level, I might be
interested in such an idea but as it stands now the sales cycles would be too
long to get a market like that going.

~~~
Aqueous
The problem, of course, is not in the fact that clearing Carbon CO2 emissions
from the air. It's the fact that it might be worth more - in dollars - to cut
those trees down and sell them. Perhaps not in this case, but certainly in
other cases where countries have tried to sell protecting their own territory
environmentally and balanced that against the worth of the resources on the
market.

Thus the dollar worth of clearing CO2 emissions doesn't clearly align with the
self-interest of doing so over buying trees to make paper and other goods.
(The self-interest, of course, is in not dying in the future from some climate
change related disaster.

That's why worldwide governmental intervention is needed to make sure the
dollar value of keeping those trees up aligns with actual self-interest.

~~~
snlacks
But as the threat becomes imminent, the appearance of "externalized" cost
diminishes and the value on protecting those resources increases and they are
no longer external.

We're already seeing this as several big companies and funds are suddenly
putting real money into "green energy."

It'll always be harder for for-profits and bottom-line driven funds to pay to
not have action, but nations are now apparently doing this. I wonder how much
of that is accounted for in known corruption. (In the U.S. we call it
lobbying.)

Edit: trying to clear up the "externalized" sentence. What I mean is that
"external costs" aren't so external at a certain point.

~~~
pyre
> But as the threat becomes imminent,

You have too much faith that by the time people view the threat as 'imminent'
there will be anything that can still be done.

~~~
snlacks
I wasn't really referring to the generally people, I meant "imminent to
businesses."

------
toasted
Pretty negative response in this thread to one of the only countries really
making serious efforts to preserve the last few remaining tracts of rainforest
on earth.

------
cpursley
I really really like this idea as long as the money does not go to
bureaucrats. If governments and people were serious about pooling money and
purchasing land for conservation (ala Ted Turner) and/or supporting
conversation efforts, the planet might have a fighting chance.

~~~
innguest
So you're saying we might have a fighting chance against environmental
depredation if instead of using government bullying, we used the private
sector to buy those lands, so long as we could guarantee the money wouldn't go
to bureaucrats?

You might want to look into libertarianism, as it has been saying that for a
long time now, and it has very good arguments as to why it works better than
the alternatives.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The 'buy up the land' thing can work without changing our form of government.
Go ahead and buy the land! Set up a campaign/foundation to do so (many already
exist).

~~~
innguest
The pope once said evolution can still be a fact without changing the belief
system of the catholic church.

You can try and adapt your thinking that way, but it is never as smooth as a
principled theory. In other words, the buy-up-land thing cannot work without
changing our form of government, as you'd have to at least do away with the
concept of eminent domain.

~~~
nfoz
> The pope once said evolution can still be a fact without changing the belief
> system of the catholic church.

Off-topic, but was this a good example of a "non-smooth unprincipled
adaptation"? I was taught evolution by Catholics and it never seemed
incongruous, but I'm not versed in the history.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Meh. Catholics, unlike many Protestant groups in midwestern America, have
neither the tradition of 'sola scriptura' nor a belief in the Bible as
inerrant, infallible historical record (or, for that matter, in the
infallibility of every single word uttered by the Pope). Mendel was a monk.
Lemaître was a priest. Even the persecution of Galileo was more politically
motivated (Urban VIII in his role as Italian nobility) than theological per
se.

------
Havoc
While I have confidence in the fundamental idea, the thought of actually
enforcing / monitoring this seems somewhat laughable. (And thats coming from
someone that has actual experience judging whether 1st world money was
judiciously applied in a 3rd world country).

------
sbhere
The original title was more succinct, even if it was identical to the
article's title. And yes, it won't be successful.

------
joshdance
Enforcement will be an issue. But I like the idea. Hopefully it does not lead
to unintended consequences.

~~~
nyrina
How is enforcement going to be a large issue? Doesn't every forest have a
forester (Not sure if that is what it's called, but we have people who "takes
care" of forests in Denmark). If a forester sees people cutting down trees
with large machinery, he would just call the police?

I doubt anyone cares if Mr. Random goes into the wood with his axe, chops down
a tree he can carry and runs off with it.

~~~
blaabjerg
It's not necessarily as simple as calling the police in Liberia. Corruption
levels there are significantly higher than they are in Denmark. What if the
logger pays the policeman to do nothing about it?

Enforcement is definitely going to be a challenge, but hopefully they have a
good plan in place.

~~~
vidarh
Aerial photography + incentives paid based on evidence that the forest
remains, coupled with dedicating part of the funding to paying locals to help
look after it creates a strong incentive shared by many groups to ensure it
works.

------
Expez
What an incredible bargain!

------
neol
besides the 150 M, Norway has to spend a lot more on regulation.

------
neol
besides the 150M, Norway has to spend a lot more on regulation.

------
soegaard
"Stem deforestation"? But deforestation is a good thing?

Oh boy - been in the CS business too long:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_(computer_science...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_\(computer_science\))

