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A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Economics, Policy, and Social Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 16245

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Kanako Morita

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Guest Editor

Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan
Interests: climate change mitigation and adaptation; biodiversity and ecosystem conservation; sustainable development; governance; investment and finance

Dr. Makoto Ehara

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Guest Editor

Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan
Interests: REDD+; forest conservation; ecosystem services; environmental assessment; human geography

Dr. Joni Jupesta

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Guest Editor

Research Institute for Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), Kyoto, Japan
Interests: climate change mitigation; biodiversity and ecosystem services; energy innovation; sustainable development; natural climate solutions

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forest-related governance is fragmented. There is no international forest convention that comprehensively addresses forest-related issues. Currently, forest-related issues are widely discussed under the various international platforms and conventions, such as the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Forum on Forests. The links between forest-related policies at national and local levels, and the concepts and agenda discussed at the international arena (e.g., the sustainable development goals, sustainable forest management, climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and nature-based solutions) are becoming increasingly important, while the studies on those links are limited.

In this Special Issue, we will invite a variety of studies that analyze the relationships between forest-related policies and global environmental governance, and that address at least one of the concepts and agenda mentioned above.

Dr. Kanako Morita
Dr. Makoto Ehara
Dr. Joni Jupesta
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainable development goals
sustainable forest management
climate change mitigation and adaptation
biodiversity conservation
nature-based solutions

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 5629 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reforestation Opportunities in Indonesia: Mitigating Climate Change and Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

by Imam Basuki, Wahyu Catur Adinugroho, Nugroho Adi Utomo, Ahmad Syaugi, Dede Hendry Tryanto, Haruni Krisnawati, Susan C. Cook-Patton and Nisa Novita

Forests 2022, 13(3), 447; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13030447 - 11 Mar 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4218

Abstract

Reforestation in the tropics is highlighted as an important intervention to mitigate climate change globally because of its potential for high CO₂ removal rates, ranging from 4.5 to 40.7 t CO₂e ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ during the first 20 years of tree growth. Reforestation is critical to meeting emissions’ targets of the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as achieving Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets. Increasing carbon stocks through forest and land rehabilitation activities (RHL) is one of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) five main strategies for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the land sector. This study focuses on reforestation opportunities to support Indonesia’s NDC in reducing GHG emissions by 2030. We identified unproductive areas of land (shrub, open land) with highly degraded conditions as potential areas for reforestation. Based on Indonesian data of land cover change, we found that reforestation activities during 2019–2030 (11 years) under a realistic, ambitious and very ambitious scenario may remove carbon up to −0.25 GtCO₂e (equal to −23 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹), −1.3 GtCO₂e (equal to −124 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹) and −2.7 GtCO₂e (equal to −247 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹), respectively. Based on international data of land cover change (Hansen et al. 2013), reforestation activities during 2019–2030, under a realistic, ambitious, and very ambitious scenario, have the opportunities to remove −17 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹, −118 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹, and −241 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹, respectively. This study demonstrates that ambitious and very ambitious scenarios of reforestation activities can significantly contribute to Indonesia’s forestry-related NDC in 2030 by reducing the Indonesia Business As Usual (BAU) emissions up to 17% and 35%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Policy and Global Environmental Governance)

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17 pages, 2457 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ecological Land Protection or Carbon Emission Reduction? Comparing the Value Neutrality of Mainstream Policy Responses to Climate Change

by Yujie Ren and Tianhui Fan

Forests 2021, 12(12), 1789; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12121789 - 16 Dec 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3190

Abstract

Improving the quality of forest, water, farmland, and other types of land use with outstanding ecosystem optimization, restoration functions (ecological lands) and reducing anthropogenic carbon emissions are recognized as the two main approaches of current mainstream climate change policies. The paper aims to evaluate and compare the value neutrality within these two main types of policy responses to climate change. To do that, a case study was conducted at the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China. We first summarized the implementation status of all climate change policies in the study area and collected data related to climate and economy at the policy pilot sites. Next, the coupling relationship between climate and socio-economic conditions at policy pilot sites was calculated by the Tapio model. Finally, we constructed dummy variables that reflected the status of policy implementation, to estimate the value neutrality of mainstream climate change policies and their impact on the coupling relationship by DID models. The results showed that the proportion of policies related to ecological lands that significantly improved the coupling degree between climate and socio-economic conditions of the pilot sites is more than that of carbon emission-related ones. Moreover, the average coupling degree between climate and socio-economic conditions of the pilot sites of ecological land policies was significantly increased by 3.99 units after policy implementation, which is 27.8% higher than that of carbon emission reduction policies. Generally, the two main findings directly evidenced that the climate change policies aimed at improving the area and quality of ecological lands were more conducive to the coupling development of the climate–economy nexus than the policies focusing on restricting carbon emissions, which provides important enlightenment for the establishment of relevant environmental policies around the world. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Policy and Global Environmental Governance)

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Review

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25 pages, 3261 KiB

Open AccessReview

Geographic Setting and Groundwater Table Control Carbon Emission from Indonesian Peatland: A Meta-Analysis

by Nisa Novita, Nurul Silva Lestari, Mega Lugina, Tatang Tiryana, Imam Basuki and Joni Jupesta

Forests 2021, 12(7), 832; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12070832 - 24 Jun 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2886

Abstract

Peat restoration is a key climate mitigation action for achieving Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) emission reduction target. The level of carbon reduction resulting from peat restoration is uncertain, owing in part to diverse methodologies and land covers. In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted to assess the impact of rewetting on reduction of total CO₂ in soil and heterotrophic emissions at the country level. The tier 2 emission factor associated with the land cover category in Indonesia was also calculated. The analysis included a total of 32 studies with 112 observations (data points) for total CO₂ emissions and 31 observations for heterotrophic emissions in Indonesia. The results show that the land cover category is not a significant predictor of heterotrophic and total soil emissions, but the highest observed soil emissions were found in the plantation forest. Using the random-effects model, our results suggest that an increase in the water table depth of 10 cm would result in an increase in total CO₂ emissions of 2.7 Mg CO₂ ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ and an increase in heterotrophic emissions of 2.3 Mg CO₂ ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. Our findings show that managing water table depth in degraded peatlands in various land cover types is important to achieve Indonesia’s emission reduction target by 2030. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Policy and Global Environmental Governance)

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19 pages, 4201 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Use of Subsidence to Estimate Carbon Loss from Deforested and Drained Tropical Peatlands in Indonesia

by Gusti Z. Anshari, Evi Gusmayanti and Nisa Novita

Forests 2021, 12(6), 732; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f12060732 - 04 Jun 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4358

Abstract

Drainage is a major means of the conversion of tropical peat forests into agriculture. Accordingly, drained peat becomes a large source of carbon. However, the amount of carbon (C) loss from drained peats is not simply measured. The current C loss estimate is usually based on a single proxy of the groundwater table, spatially and temporarily dynamic. The relation between groundwater table and C emission is commonly not linear because of the complex natures of heterotrophic carbon emission. Peatland drainage or lowering groundwater table provides plenty of oxygen into the upper layer of peat above the water table, where microbial activity becomes active. Consequently, lowering the water table escalates subsidence that causes physical changes of organic matter (OM) and carbon emission due to microbial oxidation. This paper reviews peat bulk density (BD), total organic carbon (TOC) content, and subsidence rate of tropical peat forest and drained peat. Data of BD, TOC, and subsidence were derived from published and unpublished sources. We found that BD is generally higher in the top surface layer in drained peat than in the undrained peat. TOC values in both drained and undrained are lower in the top and higher in the bottom layer. To estimate carbon emission from the top layer (0–50 cm) in drained peats, we use BD value 0.12 to 0.15 g cm⁻³, TOC value of 50%, and a 60% conservatively oxidative correction factor. The average peat subsidence is 3.9 cm yr⁻¹. The range of subsidence rate per year is between 2 and 6 cm, which results in estimated emission between 30 and 90 t CO₂e ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. This estimate is comparable to those of other studies and Tier 1 emission factor of the 2013 IPCC GHG Inventory on Wetlands. We argue that subsidence is a practical approach to estimate carbon emission from drained tropical peat is more applicable than the use of groundwater table. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Policy and Global Environmental Governance)

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