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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
World Forests Vulnerable to Global Warming
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
     http://forests.org/

11/7/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
Reuters reports on the implications of global warming to forest 
decline, as presented by WWF at the Buenos Aires climate talks.
g.b.

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Title:    World Forests Said Vulnerable to Global Warming
Source:   Reuters
Status:   Copyright 1998, contact source for permission to reprint
Date:     November 4, 1998
Byline:   By Jason Webb

BUENOS AIRES - At least a third of the world's forests are in danger 
from global warming, especially the cool boreal forests of North 
America, Europe and Siberia, the World Wide Fund for Nature said on 
Friday.

Warming weather could hurt trees' growth and reproduction more quickly 
than they could be replaced by other tree species, according to a 
report presented by the WWF ahead of the United Nations climate talks 
in Buenos Aires from Nov. 2-13.

Forest fires could break out more frequently. And attacks of pests, 
like an unprecedented invasion of spruce budworms now gnawing into 50 
million acres (20 million hectares) of Alaskan woodland.

The WWF is campaigning for developing countries to meet pledges in 
Kyoto, Japan, last year to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 5.2 
percent. The world's largest polluter, the United States, is among 
those most reluctant to clamp down on polluting industries and gas-
guzzling cars.

The talks in Buenos Aires are meant to find ways to make sure the 
Kyoto targets are met, but environmentalists fear government inaction 
will allow CO2 levels to continue to rise.

"There is no continent in the world where the forests will not suffer 
from climate change," said Stephan Singer, head of the WWF's climate 
and energy policy department.

Most at risk will be the dark ring of the evergreen "boreal" forests 
which cloak a vast region of the cold north of North America, 
Scandinavia and Siberia. They could lose 40 percent of their area if 
greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) push up world temperatures 
as scientists fear.

"The impacts of climate change are expected to be largely detrimental, 
with many models showing a dramatic shrinking of the extent of the 
boreal forest. The forests will most likely be replaced at their 
southern edge by northern deciduous forests, or agriculture, or in the 
drier areas by grassland or steppe vegetation," the WWF said.

Large areas of tropical forest could also be hit if rising 
temperatures increase the likelihood of drought. Delicate mangroves - 
tangled forests growing in tropical coastland seas - could be drowned 
by rapidly rising ocean levels.

Island forests could also vanish beneath swelling waves as higher 
temperatures cause oceans to expand and melt icecaps. Sensitive woods 
near mountain tree levels could be squeezed into smaller areas or 
vanish utterly.

"There are many threats to forests from human activities, from 
logging, from forest fires, shifts in cultivation, from agriculture. 
So if climate change comes about it will basically be the straw that 
breaks the camel's back," Singer said.

More than 50 percent of the world's natural forests have been 
destroyed over the past 100 years and an area equivalent to 57 soccer 
fields is ripped up each minute, he said.

Scientists have convinced world governments that increasing 
concentrations of greenhouse gases like CO2 from burning fossil fuels 
are trapping ever more heat on Earth, warming it up.

If trees - which are 50 percent carbon - are destroyed by global 
warming, then huge quantities of CO2 could be released into the 
atmosphere and accelerate the process still further.

Many of the industrial world governments which pledged to cut CO2 
emissions want forests, which absorb the gas, to be computed as 
"carbon sinks" and discounted from their Kyoto pollution reduction 
targets.

But environmentalists say this is just a way of avoiding cutting down 
on industry and car use and that "carbon sink" calculations could be 
based on a sketchy scientific base.

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