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. “Unless immediate action is taken, 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,” a statement said.

As florestas são extremamente vulneráveis às mudanças climáticas, que devem provocar mais incêndios florestais e inundações, e é preciso agir rapidamente para ajudar milhões de pessoas que dependem desses ecossistemas, segundo estudo divulgado na quinta-feira pelo Centro para a Pesquisa Florestal Internacional (Cifor, na sigla em inglês). Frances Seymor, diretor-geral do Cifor, disse que a proteção às florestas e seus moradores tem sido “pouco tratada nas políticas nacionais e nas negociações internacionais”.

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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 Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), urged delegates at a U.N. climate meeting in Poznan, Poland, from Dec. 1-12 to work out new ways to safeguard forests in developing nations. “The imperative to assist forests and forest communities to adapt to climate change has been poorly addressed in national policies and international negotiations,” said CIFOR director general Frances Seymour.

The world’s forests – and the billion people who depend on them – are facing devastation from climate change unless we “evolve” with the changing situation, according to a new report. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) reviewed the scientific literature on the effects of climate change on forests and concluded that it will have a dramatic effect on forests, irrespective of the future rate of greenhousegas emissions. Unless immediate adaptive action is taken, says lead author Bruno Locatelli of CIFOR, these changes will lead to a self-perpetuating cycle, where destruction of the forests leads to an increased amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which will in turn cause further climate change, and so on. The report identifies two categories of adaptation.

El impacto del clima sobre los bosques podría destruir la biodiversidad, empobrecer las vidas de millones de personas, e incrementar las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero “de un modo devastador”, según un estudio elaborado por el Centro Internacional de Investigación Forestal (CIFOR, por sus siglas en inglés) que se publicará la semana que viene. Según pone de manifiesto la investigación, y “a menos que se tomen medidas inmediatas”, el cambio climático podría destruir grandes áreas forestales además de las vidas de las “casi

1.000 millones de personas” que dependen de ellos para su desarrollo. Por ello los investigadores del CIFOR recomiendan la implementación de medidas de adaptación que reduzcan la vulnerabilidad de los bosques y de las comunidades que dependen de ellos. Entre ellas se encuentran la protección de los ecosistemas contra perturbaciones climáticas y la selección de especies que puedan soportar mejor los cambios previstos en el clima.

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The recent, “Not only for Profit”, seminar, held in Sangatta, heard that Sustainability of the area must not be the sole burdened of the Kutai National Park Center but is instead the collective responsibility of the surrounding community, government, research and education institutions as well as, perhaps most importantly, the private sector. The active role of companies operating in and around the area is indeed crucial. Thus far, however, this is a role they are not fulfilling effectively, Moira Moeliono, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor) said at the seminar. She characterized programs implemented by companies operating in the area as ineffective and unsustainable.

Paying landowners to let forests grow is promoted by the United Nations as a viable way to fight global warming, but experts first have to puzzle out how to insure trees against going up in smoke. ‘As the climate changes, there is a greater risk of forest fires, due to hotter temperatures,’ Seymour at CIFOR said.

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A scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor), Moira Moeliono, said the companies should be doing more during a recent seminar themed “Not only for Profit” held in Sangatta. She said there was a lack of supervision of and evaluation on the weaknesses of the CSR programs to find ways to improve them. “That’s why we organized a regency-level symposium in East Kutai this year to ensure that company development projects benefit their surroundings so they would not only think about profits in a particular development program.”