Crediting carbon in dry forests: The potential for community forest management in West Africa

Policy on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) is currently being debated under the auspices of the UNFCCC. The paper reviews developments in this, particularly as regards potential crediting for reduced forest degradation in places such as the Sahel, given that degradation in the tropical dry forests and savanna woodlands is a considerable source of carbon dioxide emissions. It then presents field data from sites in Guinea Bissau, Mali and Senegal where the Kyoto: Think Global Act Local project has been working for a number of years. In these sites, the local communities had been managing their forests under a variety of different programmes before KTGAL started. The purpose of KTGAL was to record the carbon outcomes of typical community forest management regimes, and to assess whether local communities were capable of making carbon stock measurements themselves. The results indicate that carbon savings range from 5 to 14 tons carbon dioxide per hectare, if both avoided degradation and increased biomass due to forest enhancement are included. They also show that communities can be trained relatively easily to make stock (and thus carbon) assessments, at a much lower cost than employing professional forest surveyors. It is not clear yet whether both reduced degradation and enhanced stock will be rewarded under REDD, nor is it sure how much of the financial reward might potentially be claimed by the communities, but even if only 10% of the financial value of the carbon were to filter back to the communities, this would still represent a considerable incentive for participation.