REDD+ PNG based on exaggerated rate of deforestation

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released its biennial report, State of the World’s Forest 2011, which again brought into question the justification for PNG’s REDD+ program.

The report concluded that globally, the overall rate of deforestation is declining, due in great part to a transition from deforestation to afforestation in the Asia Pacific region – where forest area has increased by 1.4 million hectares annually over the last decade.

The FAO presented revised figures for the rate of deforestation in PNG which are considerably lower than the data being used to develop PNG’s REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) scheme.

The UN-REDD PNG National Joint Programme relies heavily on studies produced by Phil Shearman and the Remote Sensing and Land-Use Project (RSLUP) – works that have been criticised for using flawed methodology, incorrect assumptions and inflated findings.

Shearman’s findings suggest that primary forest area covered 33 million hectares of PNG in 1972 and just 25.3 million in 2002. Shearman claims that 1.41% of PNG forests were deforested annually over this time period. PNG’s REDD+ documentation places Shearman’s calculated rate of deforestation at 360,000 ha per annum.

Shearman’s rate of deforestation figures are more than double the latest FAO assessment of 141 000 ha per annum over the last decade. The rate of change calculated by the FAO – at 0.5% – is significantly lower than Shearman’s 1.41%.

These differences are not trivial. The FAO’s newly released data calls into question the “imminent threat to PNG’s forests” referred to in REDD programme documentation.

Deforestation rates in PNG have been politicised in a campaign to bring in REDD funding.

But with the realisation that PNG forest resources are not being over exploited, much of the justification behind REDD is quickly diminishing.