Carbon Offset Schemes

Investment in Teak

Teak Plantations

With carbon credits at £30 per ton, or twice their current value, tree planting suddenly becomes a viable prospect. Stopping uncontrolled deforestation and rewarding migrant farmers for growing new trees would stop over 30% of green house gas production caused by deforestation and give the world a way to absorb gases already in our atmosphere.

Sustainable and managed forestry should become standard practice and timber traders can control this by insisting all timber is FSC certified. Forest management should also focus on clearing old trees and replanting new. If managed forestry could be made to work by prizing net CO² uptake, this would help enormously in addressing the natural balance.

Involving private funding should not be a difficult. The returns to be gained from long-term investment in tropical hardwoods are spectacular and the “feel good” factor is unparallel. Investment in forestry, apart from the possibility of helping to avoid global warming, produces an economy for needy people; improves water supply and benefits fauna and flora generally. 

There is a need for a model to be put into operation, one thousand hectares of deforested land can be bought for £300,000, reforesting with teak would cost another £500,000 and ancillary costs a further £200,000. After 20 years, deducting costs, the value of timber will exceed £150 million and the CO² uptake will be over 3,000,000 tons. Using this model, local farmers can be convinced to plant timber on their land and they could act as outgrowers for the main operation. As the process is repetitive, trees are harvested and replaced with new. Carbon uptake from one farm could be as high as 150,000 Ct per year.

Teak, (tectona grandis), is a high value tropical hardwood used worldwide for house building, furniture, boatbuilding, sea defences, etc. A mature teak tree can be worth over £10,000. Demand, at present and in the foreseeable future, exceeds production and natural teak forests are being depleted very quickly. Although there are many plantations in the world, it is thought that these will not provide enough trees to satisfy markets and more plantations are urgently needed. Main

Pie de imagen o gráfico.

Titulares del artículo

Fecha: 00/00/00