Forest and land use mitigation and adaptation in Sri Lanka – Aspects in the light of international climate change policies

摘要

As a developing island nation, Sri Lanka is vulnerable to the possible impacts of climate change.The land use and forestry sector accounts for a large part of Sri Lanka’s greenhouse gasemissions and can play a major part of Sri Lanka’s strategy to mitigate and adapt to climatechange. Data and information on land use and forests in terms of area extent and carbon stockvariability between different ecosystems is limited in Sri Lanka. The research conducted andpresented in this thesis was motivated by a shortage of data on these aspects.The overall objective of this thesis is to primarily analyze environmental parameters andsecondly to investigate livelihood aspects of forest and land use to evaluate the climatemitigation and adaptation potential in the land use and forestry sector in Sri Lanka. Specificobjectives were to; investigate the environmental status and participatory views and aspirationson land use and forest cover change; estimate structural characteristics and above groundbiomass carbon stocks for various forest ecosystems and land uses and to estimate a historicalreference level to estimate the costs and earnings for implementation of reducing emissionsfrom deforestation and forest degradation in Sri Lanka. An additional objective were to explorethe potential of and barriers to including forests and land uses in climate mitigation schemeswhile securing multiple environmental and economical benefits for local land users. Data werecollected during three periods of field work between 2006 and 2011 in different parts of SriLanka and consists of an assessment of soil and well water salinity, biomass carbon estimationsas well as participatory assessments and spatial analysis of land use changes.Results show that vulnerable coastal areas could be rehabilitated through Afforestation andReforestation Clean Development Mechanism using coconut trees or homegardens. This is dueto their multi-purposes and carbon sequestration potential as well as the role they play inenvironmental protection. Also, there is a large range in above ground biomass carbon stockbetween forest types and homegardens with a high variation of carbon stocks within foresttypes. This variation is due to the heterogeneity of forest ecosystems as well as different forestusage in the recent past causing variations in successions. Calculating carbon stock depends onthe allometric equation used, included variables and adaptation to the specific life zone. Forestconservation policies have had a positive effect on forest cover through reduced encroachmentand reduced illegal felling of timber in forests around two protected forest areas. Simultaneouslythe process has threatened the livelihoods of many local people around the forests. The forestrysector in Sri Lanka has a large mitigation potential, but reference level setting for reducingemissions from deforestation and forest degradation is hampered by erratic, few, and oftenincompatible forest inventories that lower the potential to describe past forest carbon content ina credible way. Accordingly, Sri Lanka needs further work and assistance in the form of technicaladvice and capacity-building for monitoring the nation’s forest resource and the drivers ofdeforestation.The findings presented in this thesis can contribute to a better understanding of potentialoptions and approaches that Sri Lanka can use to realize its climate change mitigation andadaptation potential in the land use and forestry sector.