Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry

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3.5.3. Country- and Regional-Level Studies (continued)

Regional Potentials for ARD Activities

Potential forest areas under Article 3.3 can be roughly estimated from the TBFRA 2000 (UN, 1999). TBFRA 2000 provides estimates of the area of forest extension and natural colonization of forest and other wooded land. These areas could be regarded as afforestation in all definitional scenarios. TBFRA 2000 also provides areas of regeneration of forest (which could be regarded as reforestation according to the FAO scenario). Estimates for the annual loss of forest to other uses (UN-ECE/FAO, 1992) could be regarded as deforestation in all definitional scenarios (Table 3-14). These estimates show recent trends (deforestation in 1980s, afforestation and reforestation in late 1980s and early 1990s) in ARD activities in Annex I countries. Note that some countries have not reported extension or regeneration of forest or losses to other uses. In addition, the terms and definitions used in the statistics do not fully correspond to the terms and definitions of ARD; thus, they provide some error to the ARD estimates. Annex I countries reported in TBFRA 2000 (see Table 3-14) had regeneration area that was 14 times larger than the area of extension of forest, and loss to other uses was nearly 3 times the extension of forest. In Europe, the area of regeneration of forest was 4.2 times larger than the area of extension of forest (23 times larger in the United States); the area of extension of forest was 2.7 times larger than the area of loss to other uses [only one-third as large in the United States (see footnote g in Table 3-14)].

Table 3-14: Average annual area estimates for regeneration of foresta, extension of forest, and natural colonization of forest and other wooded land [from TBFRA 2000 (UN, 1999)], and loss to other uses [from FRA 1990 (UN-ECE/FAO, 1992)] for specified Annex I countries. Extension of forest (including afforestation and reforestation of other wooded land) refers to late 1980s and early 1990s, and is used to approximate the area of afforestation and reforestation under the IPCC definitional scenario and the area of afforestation under the FAO definitional scenario. Regeneration refers to late 1980s and early 1990s, and is used to approximate the area of reforestation under the FAO definitional scenario. Loss to other uses refers to 1980s, and is used to approximate the area of deforestation.

Country Extension of Forest in
Late 1980s and Early 1990s
(1000 ha yr-1)
Regeneration of Forest in
Late 1980s and Early 1990s
(1000 ha yr-1)
Loss to Other
Uses in 1980s
(1000 ha yr-1)

Finland 21 167 9.5
France 10 107 60
Germany 7 70 4.2b
Ireland 17 4  
Norway 31 47  
Poland 10 59 3.4
Sweden 2 204  
United Kingdom 23 15 0.4
Europe 283 1,192 103
EU 143 850 80
Russian Federation 50c 2,026d 450e
Belarus 1 26 9
Ukraine 14 39 4
Canada   693 60f
United States 187g 4,372 506
Australia     550h
Japan   170  
New Zealand 53 20  
Boreal TBFRAi 110 3,137 520
Temperate TBFRAj 488 5,402 1,163
All TBFRA 598 8,538 1,683

a Regeneration defined as the reestablishment of a forest stand by natural or artificial means following the removal of the previous stand by felling or as a result of natural causes (e.g., fire or storm).
b For the Federal Republic of Germany.
c Annual afforestation in the Russian Federation has heavily declined between 1988 and 1996, and the number given is an average value for this time period (RFFS, 1998).
d Of this regeneration, 0.5-0.6 Mha were planted annually until about 1990. However, the amount of forest planted annually has since then decreased to about 0.25-0.3 Mha yr-1 (Pisarenko et al., 1992; RFFS, 1998).
e A. Shvidenko (pers. comm.).
f Robinson et al. (1999).
g The "Extension of Forest" area for the United States of America given in UN (1999) is 1.8 Mha yr-1. However, this number is incorrect and has been replaced with a corrected number of 0.2 Mha yr-1 (U.S. Forest Service, 2000a) in Tables 3-14 and 3-17, and in Table 3 of the SPM. After completion of these tables, notification arrived that this number has been further amended to 0.39 Mha yr-1 (U.S. Forest Service, 2000b), but has not been considered in these tables.
h The data for Australia are based on NGGI (1999), and give the average over the decade from 1981-90.
i Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russian Federation, and Sweden.
j Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece (no data), Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg (no data), The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania (no data), Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain (no data), Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia (no data), Japan, and New Zealand.

Potential ARD land in the tropics cannot be estimated from recent data. The FAO forest land-cover change in the tropics between 1980 and 1990 (FAO, 1996) shows that 3068 Mha were transferred from one land-cover class to another (Table 3-15). In addition, 92 Mha of closed forest in 1980 (out of a total of 1368 Mha) were transferred to other land-cover classes (i.e., deforested) by 1990. In contrast, only 4.2 Mha were transferred from other land-cover classes to closed forest (i.e., afforested and/or reforested) during the same period. Note that all of these transfers produced changes in woody biomass and thus carbon, as well as changes in soil carbon. Cells below the diagonal in Table 3-15 have most likely experienced increases in biomass, whereas cells above the diagonal have most likely experienced losses in biomass. Areas in the latter cells are much larger.

Table 3-15: Pan-tropical area transition matrix for 1980-1990 [FAO, 1996; FRA 1990 (UN-ECE/FAO, 1992); Survey of Tropical Forest Cover and Study of Change Processes, Forestry Paper 130, FAO, Rome].

 
Land Cover Classes in 1990 (Mha)
Land Cover
Classes in 1980
Closed
Forest
Open
Forest
Long
Fallow
Frag-
mented
Forest
Shrubs
Short
Fallow
Other
Land
Cover
Water
Planta-
tions
Total
1980
(Mha)
Total
1980
(%)

Closed forest
1275.91
8.97
9.27
9.17
2.53
21.57
34.79
1.78
3.95
1367.96
44.6
Open forest
0.86
283.31
1.3
5.18
1.46
2.4
10.18
0.05
0.21
304.94
9.9
Long fallow
1.1
0.26
48.61
1.08
0.79
2.35
2.27
0.05
0.01
56.54
1.8
Fragmented forest
0.58
0.63
0.63
159.33
0.45
1.41
11.4
0.25
0.39
175.06
5.7
Shrubs
0.15
0.2
0.26
0.14
152.6
0.34
19.17
0.19
0.15
173.3
5.6
Short fallow
0.56
0.29
0.46
0.39
0.16
119.79
7.3
0.19
0.17
129.31
4.2
Other land cover
0.71
0.7
0.26
1.35
1.94
2.03
834.23
1.58
0.44
843.26
27.5
Water
0.14
0.02
0.01
0.05
0.01
0.07
1.46
stable
0.02
1.78
0.1
Plantations
0.05
0.03
0
0
0
0.01
0.11
0
15.68
15.88
0.5

Total 1990 (Mha)
1280.06
294.41
60.81
176.69
160
149.97
920.91
4.09
21.03
3068.01
Total 1990 (%)
41.7
9.6
2
5.8
5.2
4.9
30
0.1
0.7
100




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