L’étude, réalisée par le Centre pour la Recherche internationale sur les forêts (CIFOR) basé à Djakarta, invite les délégués réunis du 1 au 12 décembre à Poznan, en Pologne, pour une réunion de l’Onu consacrée au climat à rechercher de nouvelles manières de protéger les forêts dans les pays en développement. Elle souligne que le changement climatique devrait avoir des impacts allant de la sécheresse dans les forêts des régions montagneuses d’Amérique centrale – ce qui multiplier les incendies de forêt – à l’inondation des mangroves en Asie, due à l’élévation du niveau des mers.

But there is wide disagreement on how to assess the risks under the new UN treaty, due to be agreed by end-2009. Forest owners want full access to credits as fast as possible. But insurers suggest that half be retained in buffer funds in case forests vanish in a few decades. If a forest disappeared, the credits in the funds would go to them. “How much land managers will see of the price is what the excitement is about,” said Frances Seymour, head of the Centre for International Forestry Research in Indonesia.

Forest owners want full access to credits as fast as possible. But insurers suggest that half be retained in buffer funds in case forests vanish in a few decades. If a forest disappeared, the credits in the funds would go to them. “How much land-managers will see of the price is what the excitement is about,” said Frances Seymour, head of the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia.

Forests are extremely vulnerable to climate change that is set to bring more wildfires and floods and quick action is needed to aid millions of poor people who depend on forests, a study said on Thursday. The report, by the Jakarta-based Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), urged delegates at a UN climate meeting in Poznan, Poland, from December 1-12 to work out new ways to safeguard forests in developing nations. It said climate change could have impacts ranging from a drying out of cloud forests in mountainous regions of Central America – making wildfires more frequent – to swamping mangroves in Asia as seas rise.

Climate change will transform forests that directly sustain nearly one billion people, warns a report to be released next week at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Poznán, Poland. The report, issued by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), calls for the implementation of adaptation measures to reduce the vulnerability of forests and forest-dependent communities to wildfires, drought, flooding, disease, and other environmental challenges.

The report, titled Facing an Uncertain Future: How Forests and People can Adapt to Climate Change, argues that forests are “critical to the ability of human societies to adapt to climate change” and should be treated accordingly in international climate negotiations. “The imperative to assist forests and forest communities to adapt to climate change has been poorly addressed in national policies and international negotiations. The adaptation challenge is being treated as secondary to mitigation, and yet the two are inextricably linked,” said Frances Seymour, Director General of CIFOR.

Les forêts sont extrêmement vulnérables au changement climatique qui risque d’entraîner davantage de feux de forêt et d’inondation et des mesures sont à prendre rapidement pour aider les personnes pauvres qui dépendent des forêts, affirme une étude rendue publique jeudi.L’étude, réalisée par le Centre pour la Recherche internationale sur les forêts (CIFOR) basé à Djakarta, invite les délégués réunis du 1 au 12 décembre à Poznan, en Pologne, pour une réunion de l’Onu consacrée au climat à rechercher de nouvelles manières de protéger les forêts dans les pays en développement.

Similar article appeared in Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Point, L’Express, Liberation and Reuters

Without immediate concerted action by governments, climate change could have a devastating effect on the world’s forests and the nearly one billion people who depend on them for their livelihoods, warned forest scientists in a report to be released next week at the UN climate conference in Poland. Scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research, CIFOR, in Bogor say adaptation measures to reduce the vulnerability of forests and forest-dependent communities are urgently needed. Forests will experience an unprecedented combination of flooding, drought, wildfire, and other effects of a warming climate over at least the next 100 years. “We have identified two broad categories of adaptation measures for forest ecosystems,” said Bruno Locatelli, a CIFOR scientist and lead author of the report.

Una combinación de impactos en los bosques como consecuencia del cambio climático pondrá en riesgo las masas forestales del planeta. Inundaciones, sequías, incendios forestales o reducción de la captación y evaporación del agua sucederán en los bosques a lo largo de este siglo, según un análisis del Centro Internacional de Investigación Forestal (CIFOR, por sus siglas en inglés). Para este centro de estudios, que busca mejorar el bienestar humano, «se deben tomar medidas de inmediato para adaptar los bosques al cambio climático». Entre otras acciones proponen «la protección de los ecosistemas contra perturbaciones climáticas y la selección de especies que puedan soportar mejor los cambios previstos en el clima».