By Glenn Hyman, International Center for
Tropical Agriculture
Pucallpa, Peru - Last week more than 25 professionals working
on issues related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions met in the city of
Pucallpa, Peru to discuss low emissions development scenarios. The workshop was
organized by the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and the Regional Government of Ucayali, with participation of other institutions working in sustainable
development in the region. The initiative is an activity of the ASB Partnership for the Tropical
Forest Margins.
Group discussion during training on methodologies to estimate the costs and benefits of development, Pucallpa, PeruThe workshop was a
combination of discussions on regional planning and of training in
methodologies to estimate the costs and benefits of development. During the
workshop’s first day, participants discussed different development scenarios,
including the effects of increases in deforestation and increases in the
development of certain crops. Subsequent days were used to estimate the impact
of different development scenarios. Toward that end, ICRAF scientists gave
training in the ABACUS software. Sonya Dewi and Degi Harja, of ICRAF’s
Southeast Asia headquarters, traveled all the way from Indonesia to give
instructions and how to use the software tool, as well as explaining low
emissions development planning methodology. ABACUS estimates greenhouse gas emissions and
sequestration from land-use change and the opportunity costs of avoiding such
changes.
On the last day of the workshop, workgroups presented the results of
their simulations before a group of decision-makers in the region, including
Franz Orlando Tang Jara, director of the Natural Resources Department of Ucayali
and Miguel Vasquez, President of the Oil Palm Roundtable, among others. A news article by Peru national
REDD Group had earlier indicated that the training would benefit officials from various government ministries.
The participants
produced many interesting results and many questions to be answered with future
research. Finding a balance between economic development and reducing greenhouse
gas emissions will have its complications and difficulties. Some projections
for growth of the oil Palm industry are going to imply substantial conversion
of forests simply for the lack of other available lands. The development of new
transportation infrastructure may have enormous impacts and requires much more
research to understand the costs and benefits of these planned developments. The
ASB Partnership will publish a final report of the workshop at the end of
May.
Read this article in Spanish here
Download: Landuse Planning for Low Emission Development Strategy
