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전통농업의 방법에 대한 글인 줄 알고 덤볐다가 뒤로 갈수록 경제적인 측면에 대한 이야기로 흘러버린다.

그만큼 이해하기 어려웠던 내용이라 번역도 엉망이다.

정확한 내용이 궁금한 분은 원문을 참고하시길 바란다.


나는 그저 '히마'라는 전통적인 농법이 있다는 사실에 만족하련다.





요르단 자르카 강 주변의 바싹 마른 초원에서, 양과 염소의 목동들이 고대의 히마(himá)가 지닌 가치를 잊지 않고 있다. 아랍어로 히마 방목과 벌목을 하다가 때때로 땅에 휴식을 주는 걸 가리킨다. 




히마는 농업 생산을 증대하기 위한 노력의 일환으로 자유로이 방목하도록 토지를 개방한 정부의 정책에 의해 잊혀졌다. 그 방법은 작동하지 않았다. 과도한 방목이 땅이 감당할 수 있는 가축의 수를 감소시켰고, 값비싼 사료를 수입해야 했다. 그러나 국제자연보호연맹International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN)이 수립한 시범 프로젝트를 통해, 목축민들은 몇 년 동안 땅의 일부분을 쉬게 하여 그 식생을 2배로 늘릴 수 있다는 것을 다시 배우고 있다. 이는 그곳에서 방목할 수 있는 가축의 숫자를 잠재적으로 2배로 늘릴 수 있다는 뜻이다. 농민들은 히마와 같은 지속가능한 방법으로 한 가지 혜택만 보는 것이 아니다. 그 방법은 지하수를 다시 채워주고, 홍수를 막으며, 생물다양성을 풍부하게 만든다. 


나미비아 사막회담에서 Economics of Land Degradation Initiative에 의해 발표된 보고서는 기업과 정부의 관료들이 관심을 기울여야 할 수치가 포함되어 있다. 이 보고서에서는 세계적으로 지속가능한 토지관리가 연간 세계의 작물 공급량을 25억 톤, 경제적으로는 1조4천억 달러의 가치까지 높일 수 있다고 결론을 내렸다. 


보고서는 토지의 경제적 가치가 "즉각적인 농업 또는 임업 시장가치"에 기반을 하며 “만성적으로 저평가되어 있다”고 경고한다. 물을 정화하고 저장하며, 대기의 온실가스를 흡수하거나 가치 있는 생태계와 생물다양성을 지원하는 보호되는 토지의 능력에는 거의 주의를 기울이지 않는다. 


자르카 강 유역의 방목지를 묵히자, 빗물을 더 잘 붙들어 지하수를 다시 채우게 되었다. 멸종위기종인 조류의 둥지와 함께 생물다양성이 회복되었다. “이러한 생태계 서비스가 목동만이 아니라 나라의 모든이들을 기쁘게 한다”고 국제자연보호연맹 건조지역 코디네이터 Jonathan Davies 씨는 말한다. “아마 지구도 토양의 탄소 함량의 변화로부터 혜택을 볼 것이다.”


Davies 씨는 전통적 방목법으로 얻는 경제적 혜택이 비용을 능가한다는 것은 이미 명백하다고 말한다. 그리고 그는 요르단이 누릴 간접적 혜택은 농민들의 직접적 혜택의 2배에 이를 것이라 한다. 총 가치는 어떻게 되는가? 아직 측정된 바 없다. 그 작업은 지속가능성을 목표로 하는 야심찬 국제적 노력인 Economics of Land Degradation Initiative의 도움으로 자금 지원을 받고 있다. 지속가능한 토지관리의 간접적 혜택을 정량화함으로써, 이니셔티브는 지속가능한 방법을 증대하는 것이 이득이 된다며 정부 관료와 기업을 설득하려고 시도하고 있다. 


얼마 전 발표된 연구는 지속가능한 토지관리의 혜택이 단지 작물과 섬유, 목재와 같은 가치 이상이라고 장기적 전망을 제시한다. 보고서에 관련된 사람들은 자신들의 추산이 확대되는 사막과 악화되는 토지에 맞서는 데 도움이 되기를 바란다. 


토지 악화는 1980년대 이후 지속되며 식량위기의 원인이 되고 있으며, 유엔이 주도하는 노력으로 경각심이 높아졌다. 어느 이론적 추산에서는 지구의 이용가능한 토지의 24%가 현재 악화되어 있으며, 이는 10억 명 이상의 사람들에게 직접적으로 영향을 미친다고 한다. 그 문제는 점점 심각해질 것이다. 과학자들은 세계가 2050년까지 인구성장에 따라 70~100% 정도 식량 생산을 증대해야 할 것이라고 경고했다. 


그러나 이런 엄중한 경고도 정책 결정자들의 주의를 끌지 못한 것 같다. 또 다른 전술이 필요하다. 


“우린 사막화의 발생이란 부정적 수사에서 멀리 떨어지고 싶다”고 보고서의 주요 저자이자 2009년 이니셔티브의 설립자 가운데 하나인 유엔 대학의 부국장 Richard Thomas 씨는 말한다. “단지 관심을 얻고 있는 것만이 아니다. 우리가 그것으로 전환하고 ‘보아라, 이것이 지속가능한 토지관리로 얻는 경제적 혜택이다’라고 말한다면, 그 숫자는 정말로 매우 인상적이다.”


“우리는 토양의 탄소 격리와 재순환 능력 같은 것을 정량화하고자 한다. 토지와 관련된 정신적, 문화적 가치를 경제적 가치로 환산하는 건 정말 어렵지만, 우린 양적 가치와 함께 질적 가치를 조화시키고자 한다.”


세계의 지도자와 기업들이 지속가능성의 혜택을 거둬들이기 위해 지원할 수 있는 특정한 단계가 보고서에 설명되어 있다. 나무를 심는 프로젝트에 자금을 지원하는 일, 농촌 거주자들이 관광 같은 새로운 대안산업을 설립하도록 돕는 일, 농민이 자신의 땅의 일부를 보호하고 보존하는 데 비용을 지불하는 일 등이다.


이론을 현실화하기 위하여, Thomas 씨는 기업이 사회적 책임에 흥미를 갖게 해야 한다고 한다. 홍보활동의 우선순위를  boosting “공유 가치”를 증대할 수 있는 의미있는 방법에 유리하도록 해야 한다. 그러한 방법이 토지 소유자와 정부, 그리고 그 땅에서 일하는 농촌의 빈곤층을 향상시키는 데 도움이 될 수 있다. 


기업의 사회적 책임 프로그램의 예로 근래에 나타난 공정무역을 들 수 있다. “공정무역은 단지 다른 방식으로 파이를 나누자는 뜻이 아니다”라고 Thomas 씨는 말한다. “그러나 공유 가치는 파이를 확장하는 것을 뜻한다. 그건 좀 다른 개념으로, 지역사회에 더 많은 평등한 혜택을 제공하는 동시에 경제성장을 이끌 수 있는 것이다.”


경작지의 상실을 반전시킬 희망이 없다고 일축하기 쉽다. 그러나 변화를 위한 추동력은 독일과 한국, 유럽연합이 2011년 제공한 240만 달라를 사용하여 이니셔티브가 수행할 바를 결정할 일이다. 그 돈은 보츠와나와 요르단, 말리, 케냐와 같은 국가에서 과학적 연구와 시범 프로젝트를 수행하는 데 사용되었다. 또 다른 자금 지원이 간접적으로 제공되었다. 


“우린 다른 네트워크롤 통해 새로운 지원을 받고 있다”고 이니셔티브의 코디네이터 Mark Schauer 씨는 말한다. “우리의 협력자들은 경제학은 인식 제고와 더 나은 정보에 기반한 의사결정을 만들기 위한 좋은 도구로서 간주한다.”



http://modernfarmer.com/2013/09/want-raise-crop-yields-2-5-billion-tons-give-land-break/

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Industrial logging in primary tropical forests that is both sustainable and profitable is impossible, argues a new study inBioscience, which finds that the ecology of tropical hardwoods makes logging with truly sustainable practices not only impractical, but completely unprofitable. Given this, the researchers recommend industrial logging subsidies be dropped from the UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program. The study, which adds to the growing debate about the role of logging in tropical forests, countersrecent researchmaking the case that well-managed logging could provide a "middle way" between conservation and outright conversion of forests to monocultures or pasture.


"We are facing a global biodiversity and a climate change crisis and we cannot afford to continue to lose primary tropical forests—they are central to resolving both crises," authors Barbara Zimmerman with the International Conservation Fund for Canada and Cyril Kormos, Vice President for policy with the WILD Foundation, told mongabay.com. "Despite decades of trying to log sustainably, the rate of deforestation has barely dipped over the last 20 years, from 15 million hectares per year to 13 million hectares per year—and these are low estimates. Industrial logging has shown no capacity to keep forests standing. on the contrary, logging is usually the first step towards total clearing to make way for agricultural use."

The study found that just three rounds of logging in tropical forests resulted in the near-extinction of target trees in all major rainforest zones—South and Central America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia—resulting not only in ecological disturbance but economic fallout.

Ecological and economic barriers

Deforestation for palm oil in Sabah, Malaysia. Often logged forests are then converted to plantations or pastures. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.


The very ecology of tropical rainforests—their rich biodiversity, unparalleled variety, and hugely complex interconnections between species—makes them particularly susceptible to disturbance. Targeting only a few key tree species in the forest, loggers quickly plunder these species while leaving the rest standing, rapidly changing the overall structure of the ecosystem. In this way, loggers undercut the very ecological system that allows their favored trees to replenish.

"Virtually all currently high-value timber species, are exceptionally long lived and slow growing, occur at low adult density, undergo high rates of seed and seedling mortality, sustain very sparse regeneration at the stand level, and rely on animal diversity for reproduction, all of which point to the conclusion that tropical trees probably need very large continuous areas of ecologically intact forest if they are to maintain viable population sizes," Zimmerman and Kormos write in their paper.

The particular ecology of these trees has resulted in most logging companies simply entering a primary forest, cutting all high-value species, and then leaving it to colonizers or razing everything for cattle pasture or monoculture plantations (such as pulp and paper, rubber, or palm oil).

"Logging in the tropics follows the same economic model as is evident in most of the world’s ocean fisheries," Zimmerman and Kormos write. "The most-valuable species are selectively harvested first, and when they are depleted, the next-most-valuable set is taken, until the forests are mined completely of their timber."

Boom and bust. Sawlog and veneer-log production for the Solomon Islands and five key South-East Asian nations (derived from FAOSTAT, 2011). Courtesy ofShearman et al 2012.



While initial logging can be quite profitable, later harvests bring in less-and-less money: fewer target trees can be found and the regenerative process for such species is compromised overall. Eventually industrial logging kills itself, leaving an economic vacuum that in accessible areas is often filled by conversion to pasture land, oil palm estates, industrial agriculture or timber plantations.

Some scientists have argued that the solution to this problem is to inject sustainable forest management practices into logging companies in the tropics. According to these sustainability proponents, this would ensure harvests over the long-term while protecting overall forest health.

Impact of various disturbance regimes on biodiversity in tropical forests. Chart based on Gibson et. al 2011. Photo by Rhett Butler. Click to enlarge

But according to their paper, even so-called reduced-impact logging—which is currently the exception rather than the norm in the tropics—considerably changes a forest's ecology. With many of the forest's vital seed and crop trees cut, Kormos and Zimmerman point out that "low-impact" logging leaves 20-50 percent of the canopy open, when "even small openings in the canopy (5-10 percent) can have significant impacts on the moisture content in the forest and increase risk of fire." Debris left on the forest floor quickly dries out, creating perfect fodder for fire. Unlike temperate forests, fires in primary rainforests are almost unheard of, but low-impact logging creates a new set of ecological conditions that leave the forest vulnerable to heat, wind, and, yes, fire.

"We now know that under the present sustainable forestry management guidelines, tropical forests left to regenerate naturally will be composed largely of light-wooded tree species of no to low commercial value, whereas dense-wood, high-value timber species will experience severe population declines," Kormos and Zimmerman write, noting that current guidelines are far too lax to keep forests intact.






True sustainability is not impossible to achieve, write Zimmerman and Kormos, but guidelines would need to be considerably toughened. Forestry companies would need to cut only every 60 years or more, harvest less than five trees per hectare, leave smaller logging gaps in the canopy, avoid cutting young trees, and use siliviculture techniques to plant new seedlings, among other considerations.

Giant rainforest tree in Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.


"The key to a forest’s ability to recover most of its original attributes after selective logging is low harvest intensity," they write.

But, there is a reason why there are no industrial loggers in the tropics putting such stringent rules in place.

"The problem with implementing this kind of protocol is that it would substantially diminish harvestable timber volume while further increasing management and training costs, which would make the timber operation economically unviable," Zimmerman and Kormos told mongabay.com.

It's no wonder then that logging companies generally cut-and-run, a practice which has resulted in loggers moving from one untouched tropical forest to the next, always looking for the short-term gain. For example, after logging out most of the forests in Borneo, loggers moved into places like Sumatra. Now that Sumatra has been devastated—with many of its forests turned into monoculture plantations—industrial logging went to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Primary rainforest is vanishing worldwide.

Logging not a "middle way"

Zimmerman and Kormos’ paper is one among several that debates, sometimes heatedly, the role of logging in protecting or destroying tropical forests. For example, a paper inConservation Lettersrecently came to a very different conclusion than Zimmerman and Kormos, describing well-managed logging as a middle way between conservation and outright destruction of tropical forests for agriculture or ranching.

"Selectively logged tropical forests, especially if they are logged gently and with care, retain most of their biodiversity and continue to provide ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and hydrological functions," lead author of that study, Francis Putz with the University of Florida told mongabay.com in May.

Raw logs waiting for transport in Guyana. Photo by Jeremy Hance.

Putz's paper did not argue that logging had no impact, but rather that any impact from logging was far preferable than clearing a forest entirely. While Kormos and Zimmerman agree with this point, they see a different remedy.

"There is no question that industrial logging is better than cattle pastures or oil palm or other plantations—but the fact that industrial logging is better than total forest conversion doesn’t mean we should subsidize it," Zimmerman and Kormos told mongabay.com. "Subsidies should be directed towards activities that maximize carbon, biodiversity and social benefits."

They also say some of the paper's findings are problematic. "The article includes introduced species in the biodiversity totals, and the biodiversity surveys cited were all done soon after logging and before a second harvest, so there would be an expectation that there would still be biodiversity left in the short term—the question is what happens to biodiversity in the medium term, in particular after a second harvest? In addition, the article states that a logged forest retains 76% of its carbon. But 24% of a forest's carbon is a very substantial amount of carbon emissions—it could take several decades just to recapture that carbon, whereas we need to be maximizing forest carbon right now."

Even more importantly, perhaps, is that economic problems remain, dooming many logged forests to total clearance.

"The 'middle way' does not make logging sustainable. The Putz et al article clearly acknowledges that the middle way does not achieve sustained timber yields. As a result, it does nothing to change the fundamental dynamic, which is that logging usually precedes conversion to higher value agriculture use. So the 'middle way' could actually make things worse—accelerating forest conversion," Zimmerman and Kormos say.

REDD-out



Aerial view of logging roads in Malaysian Borneo. Photos by Rhett A. Butler.

Given the problems of balancing the ecology and economics of logging in tropical forests, Zimmerman and Kormos argue that the UN program, REDD+, should discontinue a component that would give money to industrial logging companies to manage rainforests for their carbon.

"REDD+ should not be used to subsidize industrial logging. The biodiversity and climate change crises are rapidly getting worse, and keeping primary forests intact is an essential part of the response to both crises. REDD funding should be reserved for activities that keep primary forests intact, such as community management and protected areas" Zimmernam and Kormos say. They note that REDD+, which is meant to pay countries to preserve forests as carbon reservoirs, would undercut its main goal, since even well-managed logging concessions lose significant carbon when trees are felled, especially large, old trees. In addition, logged forests are at significant risk of total carbon loss as a result of fire or conversion to agricultural use.

Still, Zimmerman and Kormos, say logging can occur in tropical forests, only it should not be small operations run by local communities, and not the industrial logging that dominates the trade today.

"Community logging works when it is implemented at non-industrial scales by communities that have a vested interest in being good stewards of their land," they say. The key here is that local communities govern their own forests, which takes away the cut-and-run problem. In addition, such programs must be supported by the national government. This is where REDD+ could really make a difference.

"The most important reason that these successful local-scale sustainable forestry management models have not been scaled up to secure the world’s remaining tropical forests is a lack of funding—-a situation that REDD+ investment might correct," the authors note.


Zimmerman and Kormos say they would support a global moratorium on industrial logging in primary forests, an idea that has been floated in some environmental circles. Smaller-scale moratoriums are not unprecedented. Indonesia is currently attempting to implement a national moratorium, albeit the scheme is facing many difficulties and criticism both from environmentalists and industry. In addition, in 2002, the Democratic Republic of Congo instituted a moratorium on any new logging concessions being granted or renewed, although this moratorium has also suffered from widespread breaches. But if loggers are not to enter the world's last primary tropical rainforests—those, at least, currently unprotected by parks—drastic changes would need to be made in forest governance, which currently favors big industrial logging conglomerates over local communities with a long-term stake in the health of their forest.

Gabon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.



CITATIONS:
  • Barbara Zimmerman and Cyril Kormos. Prospects for Sustainable Logging in Tropical Forests. BioScience 62: 479–487. doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.5.9.
  • Francis E. Putz, Pieter A. Zuidema, Timothy Synnott, Marielos Peña-Claros, Michelle A. Pinard, Douglas Sheil, Jerome K. Vanclay, Plinio Sist, Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury, Bronson Griscom, John Palmer and Roderick Zagt. Sustaining conservation values in selectively logged tropical forests: The attained and the attainable. Conservation Letters. 2012. doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2012.00242.x.


    • Read more:http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0718-hance-sustainable-logging.html#ixzz216tdl2L9



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