Sustainable Forest Management Evaluation Using Carbon Credits: From Production to Environmental Forests

Abstract

The biodiversity and carbon dioxide absorption function of forests have received attention due to global warming. However, most of the world’s forests are general production forests. Since production forests are maintained by production activities, a decrease in production or abandonment of management leads to a decline in forest functions and increases the risk of disasters such as landslides. Against this background, the retention approach has been proposed as a way to convert general production forests into forests with enhanced environmental functions, but it has rarely been applied due to technical and cost barriers. This study focuses on cost barriers and examines the possibility of introducing a retention approach to converting production forests to environmental forests, using Japan as a case study. About 70% of Japan’s land area is covered with forests, 40% of which are production forests. However, due to the sharp decline in demand for timber in recent years and price competition with imported timber, the selling price of timber has fallen below the cost of managing production forests, and the management of many production forests has been abandoned. The dilemma is that the retention approach applied to the wood production process cannot be applied to forests where production activities are stagnant. Therefore, we explored the possibility of recovering the necessary costs with carbon credits that are available in the Japanese market. We calculated the cumulative carbon stocks of carbon dioxide in production forests by age, using intensity, and estimated how many years after planting the combined costs of normal production forests management and the retention approach would balance out. Our calculations show that even if carbon credits were sold at the lowest market price, the balance of payments would be balanced about 30 years after planting, resulting in a net profit from the sale of the wood.

Forest Management, Conflict and Social-Ecological Systems in a Changing World

“…The example in Ca-nadian boreal forests that they provide of functional zoning aims at distributing in the landscape conflicting land uses, an approach that would be akin to a mixed land-sparing/land-sharing strategy. Akita and Ohe [26], in this issue, propose the use of carbon credits to avoid the lack of management in former production forests in Japan that have become nonprofitable if commercialized as timber. In this case, carbon credits act as an innovation tool and can act as way of avoiding land use conflicts, as funds for management can be sourced through this alternative.…”

“…Various contributing papers account for the impact of telecoupling that is represented in topdown policies, such as the European Union targets for greener energy [28], REDD+ programs [29], and carbon credits [26,27], highlighting the vertical dimension of conflict origin, as depicted in Figure 1.…”

Forest Management, Conflict and Social–Ecological Systems in a Changing World

“…The example in Canadian boreal forests that they provide of functional zoning aims at distributing in the landscape conflicting land uses, an approach that would be akin to a mixed land-sparing/land-sharing strategy. Akita and Ohe [26], in this issue, propose the use of carbon credits to avoid the lack of management in former production forests in Japan that have become nonprofitable if commercialized as timber. In this case, carbon credits act as an innovation tool and can act as way of avoiding land use conflicts, as funds for management can be sourced through this alternative.…”

“…Various contributing papers account for the impact of telecoupling that is represented in top-down policies, such as the European Union targets for greener energy [28], REDD+ programs [29], and carbon credits [26,27], highlighting the vertical dimension of conflict origin, as depicted in Figure 1.…”

Studying the vegetation impact of terrestrial ecosystems on reducing the carbon footprint in in the territory of the Russian Federation

“…Однако полномасштабные научные исследования, проводимые в этой области в последнее десятилетие, позволяют утверждать, что помимо естественной биомассы растительности на интенсивность поглощения углекислого газа из атмосферы влияет также поглощающая способность отдельных видов растительных сообществ [2]. В таком случае, говоря о принудительном увеличении интенсивности секвестрации углекислого газа растительными сообществами, можно опираться не только на увеличение проективного покрытия зеленых насаждений и прирост их биомассы, но также и на выбор определенных видов растительных сообществ, обладающих максимальной поглощающей способностью [3].…”