Timor-Leste's Reforestation : Lessons for PNG & Solomon Is.
Patrick Nomos | 28/6/2021
(Photo Credit: Deforestation in Solomon Islands, courtesy of globalwitness.org)
Forests of Asia-Pacific islands have been degraded by some of the worst selective logging practices in the tropics. Illegal and unsustainable logging resulting in deforestation in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Solomon Islands has been occurring for several decades, despite the assurances of successive governments in both countries to effectively regulate these destructive practices.
According to Wikipedia, deforestation in PNG, mainly as a result of illegal logging, has been extensive in recent decades and is continuing at an estimated rate of 1.4 per cent of tropical forest being lost annually. Illegal logging contributes to an estimated 70-90 per cent of all PNG's timber exports, one of the highest rates in the world. In Solomon Islands, unsustainable logging has negatively impacted forest land availability resulting in logged-over areas losing significant natural and ecological value. It has been recently estimated that timber from Solomon Islands' forests is being felled and exported at a rate 19 times greater than what is considered sustainable.
Approximately 2,400 kilometres to the west of PNG, in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, a thriving community forestry program, "WithOneSeed", may provide some answers to the question of how tropical small island countries like Solomon Islands and PNG can successfully address large-scale deforestation. Faced with rapid deforestation in the past 25 years to the point where less than one per cent of its land area is now covered by natural forest, Timor-Leste has chosen active restoration rather than natural regeneration as a means to restore its forests.
WithOneSeed, an initiative of the xpand Foundation, works with subsistence farming communities in Timor-Leste to establish village-based reforestation projects led by local Community Tree Cooperatives and nurseries. Initially based at Baguia in the mountainous Baucau District of Timor- Leste, recognition by the European Union (EU) of the program's success is fostering the replication of its Community Tree Cooperative model across Timor-Leste, with an ultimate aim of planting over one million trees.
The program's methodology is designed for small-scale farmers in rural areas on farmer-managed and owned land. Reforestation is achieved by the farmers planting native or naturalised tree species according to a sustainable land-management plan. The program monitors, records and sells the carbon stored by each planted tree allowing each farmer to receive payments for the stored carbon. As the program is based on land title or certified community or customary ownership, this allows for accountability of carbon reduction. The program is designed to be replicated, and to encourage the development of local capacity, and minimise dependence on external support.
Transparency of the WithOneSeed program is achieved by the tracking of every farmer and every planted tree. Originally attained using a Global Positioning System (GPS) device, a recently developed smart-phone application called "TreeO2" now matches the unique ID of a computer chip within a nail inserted in each tree with the unique ID of a chip within each farmer's program membership card. This allows TreeO2 to record a range of data including planting date, species, GPS location, tree circumference and farmer payment information that is stored in a cloud-based server. In 2019, almost AUD100,000 was paid to the Baguia tree farmers based on the number of trees on each small-holder farm, capped at 500 trees per farm. Since 2010, AUD500,000 in community income has been paid.
The xpand Foundation's website states that at present, 986 subsistence farmers, representing 5 per cent of the local population, are planting and maintaining trees, with 215,934 trees planted and under management. From 2010 to 2019, 81,120 tonnes of carbon was captured under the WithOneSeed program, with 935,832 tonnes of carbon projected to be captured to 2039.
It is intended that documentation from WithOneSeed's conservation-concession model will be made available to other Asia-Pacific countries under the Creative-Commons ethos, offering hope to countries like PNG and Solomon Islands whose forests are now highly degraded. In a paper published in 2015*, three researchers from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji and James Cook University, Australia recommended for Solomon Islands, "....the conservation-concession model to aid forest restoration, given its recent success in the region."
*Katovai, Eric & Edwards, Will & Laurance, William. (2015). Dynamics of Logging in Solomon Islands: The Need for Restoration and Conservation Alternatives. Tropical Conservation Science. 8. 718-731. 10.1177/194008291500800309.
(Photo Credit: Tree seedling, courtesy of Pexels)