Carbon banking: Creating flexibility for forest owners

The focus of forest-based systems for sequestering carbon has largely been on creating permanent stores of carbon on defined areas of land with a single payment to the forest owner for the carbon. In terms of forest management, this focus leads to two outcomes, continuing production of timber if the forest area is sufficiently large to create an effective permanent carbon pool, or a cessation of harvesting if the forest area is too small. In addition, the payment system for carbon is generally based on matching a specific buyer and seller of carbon using a single payment to the forest owner. In combination, both of these factors create a carbon sequestration system that is too inflexible to attract anything but the largest land or forest owners. The paper presents an alternative system for carbon sequestration, carbon banking. Carbon banking treats sequestered carbon in the same way that a financial institution treats capital. In essence, forest owners ‘deposit’ carbon, in exchange for an annual payment, and those who need carbon offsets ‘borrow’ carbon by making an annual payment. The role of the carbon bank is to aggregate deposits of carbon and use these to meet various demands for carbon. There are a number of benefits of this system. It provides an opportunity for small forest owners with different types, age classes and management strategies to participate in carbon markets because payments are based on current carbon sequestered. It also allows participants in the carbon market to receive current value for carbon rather than what effectively represents the capitalised value of the future benefits of sequestering carbon, thus removing some uncertainty about locking into the wrong value for carbon.     

Multiscale spatial variation of the bark beetle Ips sexdentatus damage in a pine plantation forest (Landes de Gascogne,Southwestern France)

Bark beetles are notorious pests of natural and planted forests causing extensive damage. These insects depend on dead or weakened trees but can switch to healthy trees during an outbreak as mass-attacks allow the beetle to overwhelm tree defences. Climatic events like windstorms are known to favour bark beetle outbreaks because they create a large number of breeding sites, i.e., weakened trees and for this reason, windthrown timber is generally preventively harvested and removed. In December 1999, the southwest of France was struck by a devastating windstorm that felled more that 27 million m³of timber. This event offered the opportunity to study large-scale spatial pattern of trees attacked by the bark beetle Ips sexdentatus and its relationship with the spatial location of pine logs that were temporally stored in piles along stand edges during the post-storm process of fallen tree removal. The study was undertaken in a pure maritime pine forest of 1300 ha in 2001 and 2002. We developed a landscape approach based on a GIS and a complete inventory of attacked trees. During this study more than 70% of the investigated stands had at least one tree attacked by I. sexdentatus  . Spatial aggregation prevailed in stands with n≥15$n\ge 15$ attacked trees. Patches of attacked trees were identified using a kernel estimation procedure coupled with randomization tests. Attacked trees formed patches of 500–700 m² on average which displayed a clumped spatial distribution. Log piles stemming from the sanitation removals were mainly distributed along the large access roads and showed an aggregated spatial pattern as well. The spatial relationship between patches of attacked trees and log pile storage areas was analyzed by means of the Ripley’s statistic that revealed a strong association at the scale of the studied forest. Our results indicated that bark beetle attacks were facilitated in the vicinity of areas where pine logs were stored. The spatial extent of this relationship was >1000 m. Similar results were obtained in 2001 and 2002 despite differences in the number and spatial distribution of attacked trees. The presence of a strong “facilitation effect” suggests that log piles should be removed quickly in order to prevent outbreaks of bark beetles.     

Partitioning of soil respiration into its autotrophic and heterotrophic components by means of tree-girdling in old boreal spruce forest

Forests accumulate much less carbon than the amount fixed through photosynthesis because of an almost equally large opposing flux of CO₂ from the ecosystem. Most of the return flux to the atmosphere is through soil respiration, which has two major sources, one heterotrophic (organisms decomposing organic matter) and one autotrophic (roots, mycorrhizal fungi and other root-associated microbes dependent on recent photosynthate). We used tree-girdling to stop the flow of photosynthate to the belowground system, hence, blocking autotrophic soil activity in a 120-yr-old boreal Picea abies forest. We found that at the end of the summer, two months after girdling, the treatment had reduced soil respiration by up to 53%. This figure adds to a growing body of evidence indicating (t-test, d.f. = 7, p < 0.05) that autotrophic respiration may contribute more to total soil respiration in boreal (mean 53 ± 2%) as compared to temperate forests (mean 44 ± 3%). Our data also suggests that there is a seasonal hysteresis in the response of total soil respiration to changes in temperature. We propose that this reflects seasonality in the tree below-ground carbon allocation.     

Are gullies best for biodiversity? An empirical examination of Australian wet forest types

A relatively common observation in forest environments has been that gullies support higher species richness and individual abundance than elsewhere in the landscape. We completed a detailed case study of birds to contrast species richness and assemblage composition between gullies and other parts of the topography of landscapes in three closely related and spatially adjacent wet ash forest types – those dominated by Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans), Alpine Ash (E. delegatensis) or Shining Gum (E. nitens) – in the Central Highlands of Victoria, south-eastern Australia. We also quantified the influence of a wide range of other measures of stand structure and plant species composition on the bird assemblage and on individual bird species.     

Rain forest recovery from dieback,Queensland, Australia

We present a detailed account of a dieback episode in tropical rain forest. The dieback episode took place from 1977 to 1989 within a 0.5 ha long-term demography plot monitored for stem growth and mortality from 1975 to 2005. In total 770 m² of rain forest was affected causing 13 trees >10 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) to die, and others to sicken. The dead trees came from four families, though 14 families were represented in the area. Trees of the family Elaeocarpaceae suffered significantly higher mortality. Larger trees were significantly more likely to die than small trees, but smaller trees were more likely to recover. Recruitment to >10 cm dbh size class after dieback was greater in areas that had been affected, and in 2005 stem density and basal area were higher than in 1977, before the dieback episode started. There were no significant trends in biodiversity change between affected and non-affected parts of the plot. Dieback may have dramatic effects at onset but over the medium term its impact appears to be less serious. Longer term monitoring will permit re-evaluation of this observation in the future.     

云南西双版纳普文山地雨林植物区系研究

采用样地调查法对云南西双版纳普文山地雨林植物区系进行了研究。结果表明:其山地雨林有维管束植物83种,隶属48科76属。该植物区系科、属的分布区类型组成均以热带分布为主,分别占总科数和总属数的81.24%和89.47%,温带成分分别占8.34%和5.26%。种的分布区类型组成以热带亚洲分布为主,占总种数的49.40%;其次是中国特有分布种,占25.30%;热带分布种占70.33%,温带分布种占8.43%。这些特征均表明该植物区系热带性质显著,特有种丰富,并具有明显的热带亚洲植物区系特点和热带北缘性质,属热带亚洲植物区系向东亚植物区系的过渡区。     

森林覆盖率计算标准的变化对云南省宏观规划目标的影响

森林覆盖率是宏观规划的重要指标之一,国家林业局在2003年颁布了新的森林覆盖率计算方法,由于标准的变化,导致森林覆盖率宏观规划目标值的变化．文章阐述了新旧森林覆盖率标准的变化和关系,以云南为例,计算不同时期森林覆盖率的同标准指标,分析云南省森林覆盖率的规划目标,2015年宜为53％,2020年宜为57％,极限目标为63％．     

陆良县森林防火的历史、现状与对策研究

陆良县是森林火灾的高发区,据统计1954—2007年共发生森林火灾980次．分析了火灾发生的规律以及当前防火工作中面临的问题．针对集体林权制度改革后森林防火工作出现的新情况,提出了多方筹集资金、强化政府职能;组建各级森林防火协会;推行森林火灾保险;实行有偿扑火制度;创新管理机制,实行疏堵结合的火源管理;实行生物防火等工作思路．     

森林粗木质物残体（CWD）的研究进展

森林粗木质物残体（CWD）在保持森林生态系统的完整性方面发挥着重要的生态功能,影响着系统内外相关的生物和非生物过程,不仅为微生物、节肢动物、鸟类以及哺乳动物提供栖息环境,也是生态系统中重要的碳库和养分库,而且在减少土壤侵蚀和森林水文生态方面具重要的作用．文章总结了CWD的研究历史及状况,系统地阐述了CWD的形成和来源、贮量、分解、碳元素和营养元素的贮藏功能以及CWD对森林的更新作用、对生物多样性的维持和水文生态功能等．对今后CWD研究的重点及方向提出了建议．     

能源林收获机方案设计

介绍了作业环境及作业工艺对能源林收获机技术性能的要求,应用系统分析设计法拟定了多个待选方案,并用模糊综合评判法对其进行对比,得出最佳方案。