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Which are the options to reduce biodiversity loss while maintaining wood production?
the Netherlands - 08 October, 2014
Developments in sectors such as agriculture, mining, wood production, water management and fisheries largely shape the world’s current and future biodiversity, as they exert direct pressures on biodiversity. These sectors depend on biodiversity and ecosystems in various ways to provide food, fibre, wood, bio‐energy, fish and clean water for the world’s growing human population. The wood production sector is dependent on forest ecosystems and their goods and services. On the one hand it can be a major contributor to forest biodiversity loss, on the other it can help maintain high levels of biodiversity through responsible management of forest ecosystems. The demand for wood based products such as timber, wood fuel, pulp and paper will increase in the future. Therefore there is a clear need for options to reduce biodiversity loss while maintaining wood production. These are some of the challenges presented in the report “How Sectors Can Contribute to Sustainable Use and Conservation of Biodiversity” that served as scientific basis to the fourth Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-4) that was presented during the Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 12) in Pyeongchang, Korea.
A large potential exists within sectors, including the wood production sector, for ‘biodiversity - friendly production’ and ‘nature-‐based solutions’ that, while resulting in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, also contributes to meeting the needs of improving welfare and well-being. Realising this potential requires that the opportunities that biodiversity provides are recognized by the wood production sector. This is what mainstreaming policies need to achieve.
The report examines key options to mainstream biodiversity in the wood production sector as a complement to nature conservation: to concentrate production in high - yield plantations established preferably in degraded and low - biodiversity areas while managing high conservation values; to implement sustainable forest management in natural and semi-natural forests; and to increase processing efficiency (by re-using and recycling wood products). Outside protected areas, any option that reduces incentives to convert forests rather than manage them for timber and other products and services is beneficial for biodiversity conservation. Which option has the most potential is different per region, and depends on the present biodiversity status, the applied production methods, and the availability of land and finances for plantation establishment.
These options for the wood production sector are described in the chapter on the wood production sector that Tropenbos International contributed to the report “How Sectors Can Contribute to Sustainable Use and Conservation of Biodiversity”. The report was prepared by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and was published as CBD Technical series 79 as part of the scientific underpinning for GBO-4.