China's State Forestry Administration Announces it will use the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards

Collaboration heralds new multiple-benefit approach to world's largest tree planting program

May 11th, 2005 - China's massive reforestation effort has spent billions of dollars to plant more than one hundred million acres since the 1990s. Traditionally this has meant enormous tracts of land planted with monocultures of non-native trees.

The Chinese State Forestry Administration (SFA), the agency responsible for managing all of China's forestry initiatives, announced a new partnership for designing new projects that concurrently fight global warming, conserve biodiversity and help local communities.

The new projects will measure changes in carbon stocks, use primarily native species, and involve local communities in project design and benefit sharing. Using the newly released CCB Standards, the new initiative could change the face of forestry in the world's fastest growing economy.

"We have created the potential for large-scale conservation and policy change," commented Zhang Shuang of The Nature Conservancy.

The SFA will work with the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, research institutes from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other partners to implement these new projects. The Yunnan and Sichuan provincial forestry departments will be the main implementing agencies.

The new multiple-benefit projects will be designed for the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM allows developed countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to invest in climate change mitigation projects in developing countries and use any resulting "carbon credits" against their Kyoto obligations.

SFA's Deputy Director with the Carbon Sequestration Management Office, Chunfeng Wang announced, "As an agency in charge of carbon sequestration management, we would like to facilitate the combination of the CCB Standards with current Chinese Afforestation and Reforestation criteria in Clean Development Mechanism projects and promote testing and extension to other reforestation projects in China." With this announcement, the SFA signaled how the principles of the CCB Standards may be applied far beyond a few projects, helping guide Chinese reforestation efforts across the nation.

"We are honored and excited to work with the Chinese government and other partners on this historic opportunity. The CCB Standards have been developed and vetted internationally by leading experts in carbon conservation and sequestration, community participation and biodiversity protection. By agreeing to new projects that meet the CCB Standards, China has recognized the value of community-based ecosystem management. Working together, we can bring real benefits to the atmosphere, local communities, panda bears and other threatened wildlife," said John-O Niles, CCBA manager.

China's move is another example of the growing trend to develop novel ways for financing the conservation and restoration of ecosystems that have traditionally been thought of as free. "The coalition aims to improve the ecological services provided by China's forests through restoration and natural regeneration, as well as exploring innovative methods for payments for ecosystem services and conservation financing," said Lu Zhi of Conservation International.