Gun Mardiatmoko

By Gun Mardiatmoko

The role of forest biomass is now greater due to its ability to cope with global warming. Facts prove that forest cover decreases have caused climate change and various disasters such as flood, landslide, drought, extreme weather, and others. Efforts to address climate change have been made by the international community through greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction programs with avoided deforestation and forest degradation through the afforestation/reforestation clean development mechanism (A/R CDM), reducing emission from deforestation and degradation (REDD+), joint implementation (JI), and voluntary carbon market (VCM) schemes. These programs are closely related with carbon trading. Carbon markets need a unit of trade. For carbon, this is one ton of greenhouse gas emissions expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents (tCO2e). That is why measurement of forest biomass is very important. Methods to estimate forest biomass from models, inventory, remote sensing data, and geographical information system are being developed, evaluated, and demonstrated at several pilot regions in the world. Carbon markets are believed to be effective and efficient mechanisms in providing these financing sources. In carbon markets, prices are decisive in generating carbon credits. Higher carbon prices will cause more carbon credits to be generated. Nevertheless, carbon trading from REDD+ is found to be a concern especially for developing countries that is the risk of leakage and non-permanence. This chapter aims to inform the importance of measuring forest biomass as it is used as the basis for carbon accounting on carbon trading.

Part of the book: Renewable Resources and Biorefineries

By Jan Willem Hatulesila and Gun Mardiatmoko

Many people already understand that the impact of climate change is directly related to forestry, agroforestry, and agricultural crop production, as well as the preservation of biodiversity in small islands, which supports the local community’s economy by producing various types of plants. According to studies, the dynamics of climate change directly impact the availability of food and island communities’ readiness to maintain local economic resources. Therefore, agroforestry clusters can be determined based on the agroecological conditions directly related to the distribution of plant species, such as their ecological, conservation, landscape, and economic aspects. Furthermore, the area of ​​land and the composition of the types of agricultural crops grown were taken into account based on the form of cluster analysis variables, in the villages on the small island of Maluku, which are only in the good (average sustainability index score is 89.2) and moderate (average sustainability index score 69.7) categories. Agroforestry also contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation, therefore, to determine the magnitude of the contribution of agroforestry in absorbing carbon, it is necessary to measure biomass using non-destructive and destructive methods.

Part of the book: Agroforestry

By Gun Mardiatmoko

The impacts of climate change are changes in rainfall patterns, sea level rise and extreme weather or extreme meteorological events. This impact will further provide dangers that threaten the sustainability of human life. The main causes of climate change are deforestation and forest degradation and the growth rate of industry and transportation modes that are not environmentally friendly. Therefore, Indonesia is participating in the Paris Agreement and implementing the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program, role of conservation, sustainable management of forest and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+). In an effort to increase the prosperity of the State, many forests have been transferred to other uses such as the development of oil palm plantations, agricultural land and urban expansion etc. In fact, many agricultural lands have changed their function into settlements. If this happens, the forest area will continue to decrease again because after the agricultural land has turned into residential land, the forest land is converted again for agricultural expansion, this happens continuously. When viewed from the CO2 flux, there will also be changes in the basic CO2 flux from forest land, plantation land, agriculture and urban areas. The problem of deforestation and forest degradation is inseparable from the large number of forest conversion functions into oil palm plantations, expansion of agricultural areas and other uses such as urban development and infrastructure. Opportunities for climate change mitigation and adaptation include the implementation of the REDD+ program, financing of climate change mitigation and availability of climate information. The challenges faced include the lack of synergy in the policy framework and implementation of climate change control, recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights and uncertainty in the implementation of the REDD+ program.

Part of the book: Climate Change in Asia and Africa