Is EU changing mind in terms of forest carbon?

New rumbling emerged from Europe this week that the potential for emissions-reducing activities involving land use, land-use change, and forestry may be finally getting a day in the European sun.  The European Commission opened up a public consultation to reevaluate the way Europe has gone about accounting for its land use emissions, particularly involving forest management.  We're still not at the stage of debating whether the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will be opening its doors to offsets from land-use activities, but this still signals a potential sea change from the earlier European position on forestry leading in to Kyoto.

The Interim REDD+ Partnership took some more flak recently as a group of more than 30 NGOs spelled out a growing disappointment with the Partnership's gestures at public consultation.  And while the REDD+ Partnership was being scolded, regional dialogues took place in Mexico and El Salvador showing just how to help close the distance between government and civil society actors in REDD+.

Further south, more details and caveats emerged for the nascent Peruvian and Ecuadorian forest conservation efforts.  Some of the nitty gritty of the Peruvian Forest Conservation Program for Climate Change Mitigation surfaced with a new article in the press, and Ecuador's President signaled that the official government endorsement earned recently for the Yasuní-ITT Initiative could be scrapped unless the cash flow is up to his expectations.

As Greenpeace continues patting itself on the back following a series of announcements from major companies withdrawing business relationships with Sinar Mas, an Indonesian palm oil company, the heightened stakes in Indonesia are leading Golden Agri-Resources, part of the Sinar Mas Group to do some island, or rather continent-hopping. Golden Agri-Resources is looking to skip over to Liberia to form a partnership for a 220,000 hectare palm oil plantation.  Fresh off claims of a broad carbon "scam" surfacing this summer that landed a UK-based company on the hot seat, we'll keep our eyes on Liberia to see if maligned palm oil companies seem to make better inroads than maligned carbon project developers.

As always, read on for all this and more, including project development updates and the latest from forest carbon standards organizations in this, the latest edition of Ecosystem Marketplace's Forest Carbon Newsletter.

—The Ecosystem Marketplace Team

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