RE: Climate change and forests

[Don Munton]

Marcus and GEP-ED:

We are learning that, unfortunately, this is a much more complicated
question than it seemed. 
Forests are not always good sinks, and sometimes not sinks at all. Old
growth forests take in a lot less CO2 than young forests. (So, as you
can imagine, the corporate cry is: "cut 'em down.") And, as a new study
in British Columbia has shown, the huge area of the province where pine
beetles have killed trees is going to be a major source of CO2 over the
coming years as millions of trees die and decompose - indeed it is
projected to become one of the largest sources of GHG emissions in
Canada ! 
One of our UNBC colleagues, Art Fredeen, has been challenging the idea
of forests as sinks, even before the recent study of beetle kill areas.
(See his web site: http://web.unbc.ca/~fredeena/alf.html

Don Munton 
University of Northern British Columbia

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcus
Schaper
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:58 PM
To: <GEP-Ed
Subject: Climate change policy across levels

Dear all,

A student is tackling an interesting thesis project, but has come up
empty-handed in identifying literature for the theoretical framework  of
his project. I hope you can help.

His central question is: "Why are the climate stabilization services of
forests undervalued at the local level?" His hypothesis is that we value
forests as sinks at the global level, but this valuation does not
translate to disincentives to deforestation at the individual level
because of gaps or breaks in the transposition chain from the global to
national to local level.

Any suggestions for literature on this or similar mechanisms for other
resources (water?) would be greatly appreciated. Almost  
anything on regime design or mechanisms that translate global objectives
to individual incentives would be helpful.

Thanks,
Marcus