Mitigation Analysis

Conclusions

The implementation of forest mitigation options to sequester and conserve carbon could potentially play a significant role in offsetting carbon dioxide emissions in Venezuela. More importantly, forestry projects designed within the context of climate change issues basically deal with native forest degradation and loss, which are significant environmental problems in Venezuela. Our analysis has shown that typical sustainable forestry practices, if adopted at the national level, can reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation rates.

Based on the two case studies and the mitigation scenarios, forest protection and management of native forest represent the two options with the highest carbon conservation potential and the lowest carbon unit cost. Stopping or drastically reducing deforestation, through the application of effective measures to protect native forests, may appear to be a rather simple and high impact alternative for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. However, the primary causes of forest clearing in Venezuela are not related to forest activities and, consequently, the definition of feasible mitigation options will depend upon a good understanding of other economic sectors and how they account for land use change. Land tenure, rural poverty, political interests, and weak implementation of land-use planning instruments and environmental laws are considered to be key limitations to any effort dealing with forest conservation efforts.

Expansion of the forest cover through the development of intensive forest plantations also presents a high potential to offset carbon emissions in the country. However, this option might be considered more applicable in the longer run due to the higher costs involved in the development of this type of project. Land tenure, economic factors, and lack of incentives represent some of the most important barriers to the development of forest plantation and agroforestry systems in the country. Funding for forestry projects has been traditionally an important limitation to most government and private initiatives, especially when considering the long-term return of forestry development projects. However, well designed incentives from the Venezuelan Forest Service have proven to be an effective mechanism to encouraging commercial reforestation on marginal lands, especially with fast growing species.

Community participation, local benefits, institutional capacity and competence, as well as the involvement of non government organizations are other relevant issues that need to be addressed in an assessment of forestry projects for offsetting carbon emissions in Venezuela. Given the social issues involved in the land use change processes that have characterized Venezuela, a closer analysis of the main constraints and opportunities for the implementation of mitigation options will have to consider non carbon benefits as the key component of such initiatives.

The main limitation to this study relates to high uncertainties in the data used for forest conversion, biomass densities, and soil carbon, which in turn affect the reliability of both projected carbon emissions from land use change (baseline scenario) and estimated carbon storage potential in the two mitigation scenarios. Additionally, because the consideration of other important factors different from land availability, such as socioeconomic and political constraints, would have a significant influence on the outcome of this study, the results obtained in this analysis should be viewed as a first attempt to evaluate the carbon benefits derived from the adoption of such measures. Some of these factors should be addressed in the near future in order to provide a more accurate picture of the feasible alternatives for reducing Venezuelan carbon emissions through forest practices.

Index
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