The deliberations of the so-called “Climate Summit”, which was held in Berlin from 28 March to 7 April, 1995, have important, if indirect, implications for land management policy in India.  During the course of the eleven days, the first Conference of Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) resolved to establish a voluntary pilot phase for joint implementation (JI) activities to abate global greenhouse gas (GHG) levels.  Such activities, which could be pursued between Annex I Parties (developed countries who have ratified the FCCC), would have to support national environment and development priorities and strategies, and contribute to cost-effectiveness in achieving global benefits.  With particular reference to land management, the purview of such efforts would encompass both the control of relevant sources of such emissions, as well as the increase of the number, size and capacity of sinks and reservoirs capable of sequestering GHGs. 

Such initiatives would most feasibly take the form of afforestation and orest conservation.  India is in urgent need of precisely such measures, for at least two reasons.  First, the numerous beneficial impacts of forests, particularly with regard to the impact to land management, are universally known.  Afforestation moderates the climate and precipitation regimes of a given area; prevents soil erosion and increases the water retention capacity of the land; increases soil fertility by ensuring the perennial addition of organic matter to the soil; and thereby both reverses land degradation and increases its commercial value. 

Second, India has about 13 million hectares of fully degraded forests (see figure; for the purpose of this article, forest areas with less than 10% crown cover has been considered fully degraded), and is in urgent need of both afforestation and conservation.  Unfortunately, the government is unable to invest the amount of money currently needed to ensure afforestation at the required scale. 

This paper considers whether a part of this vast problem  could be resolved through JI forestry projects undertaken by India and Annex I Parties during the pilot phase.  Such projects will provide both the necessary funds and technology to achieve the goal of increasing CO₂    sinks capacity of the Indian forests within the pilot phase itself.  Such afforestation activities could then be continued under the country’s normal forestry programme. 

Such efforts to promote JI projects in the forestry sector are explicitly sanctioned under the UNFCCC, since they would help fulfil its chief objective: the stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. 

Additionally, these initiatives would fulfil basic conditions stipulated by the FCCC, namely that such stabilisation be achieved within a time-frame of sufficient length, so that ecosystems would be  enabled to adapt naturally to climate change; that food production not be threatened; and that economic development be enabled to proceed in a sustainable manner. 

Finally, the North-South cooperation envisaged under JI is also permissible under the UNFCCC.  While developed countries are bound to decrease their net GHG emissions to 1990 levels, they may implement such policies and measures jointly with other Parties in order to fulfil their commitments under the Convention. 

Significantly, all JI activities initiated between 1995 and 2000 have been identified as experimental in nature.  In fact, the Cop-1, empowered by Article 4.2(d) of the UNFCCC, has delineated the period between 1995 and 2000 as a pilot phase directed towards the design of strict and objective criteria to define the scope of future JI projects in the twenty-first century. 

The Cop-1 has also decided that no credits shall accrue to any Party as a result of greenhouse gas emissions reduced or sequestered during the pilot phase.  As yet, there is a comprehensive lack of information about appropriate and equitable crediting procedures and criteria for credit eligibility, a lacuna that the pilot phase is also intended to eliminate. 

Finally, the Cop-1 has resolved that all JI projects initiated in the pilot phase must obtain the prior acceptance, approval or endorsement by the Governments of the Parties involved in these activities.  Progress made during the pilot phase would be reviewed by the CoP at its annual session.  Ideally, by the year 2000, these periodic assessments would help provide guidelines for the continuation of JI activities beyond that date. 

Therefore, the five-year pilot phase of JI provides each signatory to the UNFCCC sufficient time to complete its learning processes and test applications of JI in areas of significant interest.  India should capitalize on this opportunity, and explore opportunities for JI activities in the forestry sector. 

Specifically, afforestation activities pursued by JI activities represent an obvious opportunity to abate GHG emissions in India, since forests possess considerable Co₂ fixation potential.  According to E.H. Lysen’s Climate and Energy, every kilogram of wood (dry matter) contains roughly 0.5 kg of carbon, implying that it fixes about 1.8 kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere.  The annual production rates of wood strongly depends on species, climate and fertiliser input, and vary between 4 to more than 60 metric tonnes (mt) of wood per hectare per year.  But even if this variation is taken into account, the annual fixation rate of one hectare of forest should fall between 7 mt of CO₂ /ha/yr to more than 110 mt of CO₂ ha/yr. 

Currently, India’s recorded forest area (1993 estimate) stands at about 77 million hectares.  Of this amount, there are 38.5 million hectares of closed forests, 25.03 million hectares of open forests, and 0.45 million hectares of mangrove forests.  Thus, the actual forest cover amounts to approximately 64 million hectares.  This forested area is capable of sequestering a significant amount of CO2, K. Chatterjee, (DA Newsletter Vol.4, No.5 June 1994) has noted that, given that these forests produce about 52 million cubic metres of wood per annum (1987 and 1991 State of Forests Report estimates), the annual CO₂ sequestration capacity of Indian forests (flow of carbon) would fall between 31 and 399 million tons of carbon (MTC) (equivalent to between 114 and 1479 mt of CO₂ ). 

This estimate, however, is by no means even approximate to the potential carbon sequestration capacity of Indian forests, for about 13 million hectares (16.62% of recorded forest area) are considered fully degraded (less than 10% crown cover).  If these areas were to be afforested, the carbon sequestration capacity of Indian forests would be significantly augmented. 

The present annual rate of afforestation in India is about 2 million hectares (under various programmes such as social forestry, watershed development and wasteland development).  JI afforestation activities undertaken in degraded forest lands (excluding wastelands) could significantly increase this rate, while providing the funds and technological assistance that are so sorely lacking at this time. 

Interestingly enough, the capital cost of planting biomass in degraded forest areas is relatively low compared to the development of other renewable energy sources.  If the areas to be afforested for CO₂ sequestration are not exploited as energy sources, the required investment level fall somewhere between US$100 to 600 per hectare, with an average of around US$250 per hectare (IPCC1990).  Therefore, with a capital recovery factor of 10% (US$ 25/ha/yr), and a fixation of 35 million tonnes of CO₂/ha/yr, the CO₂ removal costs finally amount to an attractive figure of US$ 0.71 per tonne of CO_2. 

But even these relatively low levels of investment would probably exceed the current funding capacity of the Indian government.  Current levels of fund disbursement have only sustained a net land use change (afforestation minus deforestation) of 92,500 hectares (1993 estimate).  Here again, the purview of JI allows for the circumvention of this problem, for these financial requirements would be met by investments from the Annexe-I Party cooperating with India in the afforestation initiative. 

Therefore, it becomes quite clear that JI activities in the forestry sector offer considerable opportunities to reclaim and afforest degraded forest lands, an important land management objective.  While important issues of national sovereignty and ownership of afforested areas, and popular participation of local communities in JI activities would have to be negotiated prior to the commencement of the initiatives, the potential benefits are obvious.  Therefore, India should capitalize on the latittude provided during the pilot phase, and refine its understandign of the scope and potential impact of JI in the forestry sector.  q