Losing forests via carbon trade?

A fantastic opinion piece was published yesterday in the New York Times on the threat of the current carbon trade/offset mentality to forest ecosystems (linked below).  A good summary:

'Contrary to what you might hear from energy companies and environmentally conscious celebrities, offsets don’t magically make carbon emissions disappear. Worse, relying on them to stem global warming may devastate our vital forest ecosystems.'

I encourage you to read the entire article.  It is well written and makes some excellent points.  I really hope more people take note of this issue.

One of my close friends is working with the Costa Rican government to create and link their country's "carbon economy" with others in Latin America and around the world. While Costa Rica has historically conserved their tourist-targeted ecosystems, they are ignoring this potential offsets/conservation dichotomy as they progress toward their goal of carbon neutrality (as a country) within the next decade or so. But they do support farmers who plant and harvest single or mixed species plantations as a means of selling carbon credits to polluters. And I imagine it will be even worse in countries that cannot afford to be as conservation friendly.

I just emailed my friend this article. And I am very interested to see what his response will be....

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READING: Heinrich (2009) Clear-Cutting the Truth About Trees. The New York Times.
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