Final Report Summary - BENWOOD (Coordination actions in support of sustainable and eco-efficient short rotation forestry In CDM countries)
Executive summary:
The project has contributed to giving Short rotation forestry (SRF) a push in many countries within the European Union (EU) and in selected developing countries including Brazil, China and India. Main activities consisted of collecting existing knowledge in several dedicated documents as well as holding public events for the target groups. It is planned to continue project activities beyond the project via the so-called Sustainable rural environment and energy network (SREN) network which is supported by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
In particular, the project has:
1. Provided seven public workshops, six of them with really high participation, all of them of high impact. Among them, one was in cooperation with FAO (see below) and a successfully co-organised International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) symposium in India in cooperation with IUFRO. This cooperation enabled to obtain funding which was used to support participants from Clean development mechanism (CDM)countries and to hold an additional IUFRO training session. Without BENWOOD cooperation the funding would not be possible.
2. Established about 860 pages of direct publications on scientific issues within the sector of SRF. These are papers directly funded by the BENWOOD project, no double count of papers submitted elsewhere anyways (papers, however, not in the sense of peer-reviewed, since the project was of type coordination and support, but in the sense of dissemination character. I refer here only to scientific content papers not project reports).
3. Cooperated highly successfully with the UNFCCC, the agency responsible for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, and brought direct benefit to them triggering the official approval of a new so-called CDM methodology for salinised soils due to a scientific presentation made at our final conference. We have an according appreciation statement of Dr Galinski, team lead of the UNFCCC CDM afforestation / unit.
4. Cooperated with the FAO revitalising the SREN network, which was founded in the 1970s under FAO auspices and which shall be continued by three BENWOOD project partners.
5. Cooperated successfully with the renowned Indian Society of Ecology who has issued a special edition (available on the BENWOOD website) of 245 pages with contributions from authors within and outside India on SRF. They mention in the foreword BENWOOD and the European Commission (EC) in first place when acknowledging funding contributions (other organisations have been IUFRO and ICFRE) that has made the according symposium and the publication possible.
6. Made contacts with several researchers in countries outside Europe on the issue of SRF and agroforestry, among them in particular India, China, some countries in Africa, Brazil, Bolivia and the United States.
Main project results in terms of public deliverables are:
1. a professionally layout brochure including a DVD with related film clips, pictures, pdf and a brochure which sums up the results;
2. guidelines for farmers, project developers, investors and 'intermediaries' including a list with the most important practical things that need to be done and avoided (dos and don'ts);
3. a research agenda;
4. best practices;
5. land use management standards: A description of the conflict between growing trees on agricultural fields and food production with a focus on African case studies;
6. CDM specifics: Outlines the characteristics of countries which may host the so called 'CDM projects' with regard to SRF (traditionally these countries are developing countries);
7. profitability analysis: a synopsis of differences between developing and industrialised countries together with case studies on different business models. Sheds light also on the economic importance of annual crops in agroforestry systems;
8. a document on SRF and CO2 reduction via CDM projects;
9. a report on cooking stoves (relevance of the efficiency of small cooking stoves based on wood fuel);
10. a report on charcoal production;
11. a survey on SRF among key stakeholders;
12. a paper on the characteristics of poplar with a focus on 'utilisation'.
Further the following large public events have been held:
1.Beijing (China), May 2010. Major topic: Difficulties in the current framework of rules and standards to establish a Short rotation forestry (SRF) project.
2.Barolo Northern Italy (near Torino), June 2011: Three day workshop including a one day field trip on the laboratories and fields of project partner Alasia New Clones. Conference topic: SRF and agroforestry: an exchange of experience between CDM countries and Europe.
3.A virtual public workshop on CDM issues in SRF in November 2010: A live internet based workshop held with participants worldwide via internet. Participation e. g. of staff of the World Bank. Special guest was Dr Galinski from the UNFCCC and Dr Kulkarni, an Indian CDM project developer.
4. An event in Budapest hosted in the FAO office. Topic: How to participate in modern information networks on agriculture and renewable energy. Participation in particular by Indian and Chinese guests.
5.Large events in Ludhiana, Punjab / northern India: An awareness camp in 2010, A IUFRO post-symposium training workshop in February 2011, on 'Working effectively at the interface of forest science and forest policy'.
Project context and objectives:
What made the BENWOOD project special is that it tried to establish a scientific information exchange between actors located in Europe and ones in developing countries. Extremely rich information was tapped, to name are in particular experience with agroforestry in India and in China. Indeed some of the project partners plan to continue this information exchange beyond the project end. As a major aspect for Europe the large experience with agroforestry in India and also in China should be taken more into consideration. Despite climatic and other major differences between the two continents / regions many things can be learnt from developing countries, a circumstance which might surprise at first sight. Also what regards the smallholder approach is really worth to look at solutions established in developing countries including in particular also Africa and how these solutions may be adapted on the long run to European conditions.
What is SRF?
Producing firewood by periodically cutting back deciduous trees every 10 to 20 years is an ancient technique claiming some thousands of years of tradition but has been wiped out by the fossil era in the 19th and 20th century in industrialised countries. Only in the last decades, driven by the globally increasing energy demand and the need to reduce fossil fuel consumption, several new initiatives have come up under the name of SRF. The approach is new as it now builds on specially bred and selected clones. They are to a large extent pest resistant, adapted to local climates, soils and able to quickly rebuild new sprouts ('coppicing') after being cut back.
Moreover, modern SRF involves special agricultural harvesting techniques and shorter rotation periods of about 2 to 7 years between two harvests. However, due to sharp drops of the oil price in the 1990s, these 'revival' initiatives have suffered several setbacks despite its strong long-term advantages. At the end, at a global scale SRF has never been able to gain noteworthy attractiveness as a dendromass energy carrier compared to conventional forestry. European SRF areas worth mentioning are found in a rather small number of countries, such as Sweden (approx. 16 000 ha), Poland (approx. 10 000 ha) or Italy (approx 5 000 ha). Each of these countries is represented within the project consortium through a leading national expert.1
What are 'CDM' and 'JI'? xx # CDM and JI projects are part of the so called 'flexible mechanisms' of the Kyoto Protocol providing industrialised countries with the possibility to fulfil their greenhouse gas caps through emission reductions achieved abroad. Both project types rely on the same principle: a country contributes capital to the implementation of a project which reduces greenhouse gases (six eligibgle gases, most important are CO2 and CH4) in another country called 'host country'. Eligible CDM host countries are 'non-annex I parties' (annex of the Kyoto Protocol) which basically are developing countries whereas JI projects are practically implemented in the former European eastern countries, Russia and other transition countries.
The following countries which are realistically eligible as host countries have participated in the Benwood project (in brackets the according partner representing the country in the consortium): CDM: India (PAU), P.R. China (BJFU), Brazil (Plantar), Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Cameroon and Mali (all ICRAF). African countries are eligible to the CDM project cycle but according to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change (UNFCCC) of currently (Feb. 2008) about 860 registered CDM projects in 49 countries Africa accounts for just 2.6 % of the projects. # JI: Croatia (UniZagreb), Poland (Dubas)
Objectives
Why do SRF and CDM / JI not take off together?
Main reasons for the persisting niche market status of SRF are { besides the low energy price of the past { the scarce commercial availability of necessary production factors: Farmers lack regionally adapted and tested high quality planting material ('clones'), appropriate, scalable harvesting, drying, storage and combustion techniques (in particular small to medium farmers) and adapted pest control. Moreover, too little information on the already viable existing solutions reaches the key target groups which mainly are farmers who are the ultimate lacking tested prod decision makers regarding the land and European CDM / JI project developers who may act at a large scale using the current global political framework on climate change (CDM / JI - the 'flexible mechanisms' of the Kyoto Protocol). Both still know too little about SRF specific opportunities and risks relating to financial, technical, biological, agricultural and market (sale of the dendromass) aspects. A non-technical barrier is the uncertainty on how to sustainably satisfy the growing biomass and food demand given the limited amount of arable area. Within that challenge the potential of SRF to make a sustainable contribution is often overlooked when policy makers design national agricultural subsidy schemes.
What needed to be done?
Objectives of the project
BENWOOD has promoted the exchange of experience and practices among researchers and project developers in the area of SRF. This was done via workshops and establishing relevant documents. The focus was on promoting and enhancing the quality of afforestation / reforestation projects done with SRF in developing countries, in particular when implemented under the above described CDM framework of the Kyoto protocol. Main results
Whereas in the executive summary all results have enlisted here only the main results are provided which are: The main results in terms of public deliverables are: Written outputs, SRF guidelines. These guidelines target CDM project developers, farmers and stakeholders from the energy and biomass sector ('SRF guidelines and standards for land use management') and according investors. Taking the guidelines during project development the quality of future SRF projects, especially in developing countries, will be enhanced. They combine requirements on land use management, food safety, hydroregime and climate conditions. A particular focus of the project is on the competition for area between biomass production for energy and food production.
Research and development (R&D) agenda
The R&D agenda describes the most pressing open research questions on SRF.
Public workshops
A three day workshop has already been held in Beijing (China) in April 2010. A highlight was the speech of Dr Kulkarni from an Indian CDM project developer who provided a glimpse into the cumberness of developing a CDM project with a multitude of farmers in the SRF sector. The CEO of China's branch of CAMCO, the world's largest CDM project developer, in his speech explained very openly why SRF projects are currently not very interesting to private project developers. Difficulties in the current framework of rules and standards to establish an SRF project was a major topic. There was strong participation from Chinese decision makers and scientists, as well the FAO and CDM project developers were amongst the audience. The second public workshop was a three day workshop held in Northern Italy, in Barolo including a one day field trip to the laboratories and fields of Alasia New Clones, one of the world's leading poplar breeders. Harvesting machines, a planting machine and a machine preparing poplar cuttings have been demonstrated in operation.
A virtual public workshop on CDM issues in SRF
This live internet based workshop was held with participants worldwide on via internet. The event was well prepared with uploaded documents on the speeches beforehand (available on the website) providing participants with the possibility to forward questions before the event.
DVD and brochure
The brochure is called like that due to the original project proposal, however what regards the final result this is an understatement because it comprises more than 100 pages with highly relevant information on SRF. Moreover it includes a DVD in the rear part holding film and photographic material on the issue. The brochure was done by a professional graphical studio what regards the layout as well as the DVD was established by the same studio. It can be used in a DVD player with according menu choice etc. As a result it is somehow the project's business card or highlight what regards the possibility for dissemination. The brochure (not the fill material due to the volume) may be downloaded from the website, however each country manager has received a considerable number of print copies which third parties may request as long copies are available.
Website
The public website disseminates the project results and provides stakeholders with the possibility to contribute to the project It is continued at 'low flame' after the project's end under the SREN network of the FAO. All deliverables as publications (SRF guidelines, DVD, R&D agenda, brochure, website) will have the same structure (identical chapters in the table of contents). The goal is to make it easier for addressees of the publications to find according information. If a reader finds information within the SRF guidelines in the chapter 'Planting' and wants to know what research questions are currently the most urgent in this area he looks up what is contained in the R&D agenda under the same chapter name 'Planting'. Moreover he may look on the DVD in a directory of the same name if there are any films or pictures related to that chapter (in reality there is an indication in the chapter of each publication what can be found on the issue in the other publications so one does not have to look into each publication).
CDM specifics
This large document shows in the first part generic differences between CDM countries (basically by this expression developing countries are understood) and European countries what regards short collision forestry. In the larger second part various specific questions have been prepared for selected BENWOOD country managers on relevant topics within SRF. These questions (close 200) are answered separately for the countries Brazil, China, India, and for Africa with a focus on Kenya.
Profitability analysis
The paper sheds light onto the role of the financial profit for farmers in SRF. In the paper the farmer's perspective is taken - it is not about the economic aspects of SRF (how does SRF affect the economy of a region or a country). The paper contains case studies which for the case of India and Kenya in particular describe the situation in a small village and for India even in the form of a small story of a fictitious farmer who plans a new SRF culture in an agroforestry scheme. The document holds much interesting data in tabular form on profitability and according basic data, in particular for India, Kenya and for Poland. What regards Poland a detailed analysis of the financial performance of the farm of the Polish BENWOOD project partner is provided so data is particularly reliable.
Spreadsheet model
A large spreadsheet-based model for the financial analysis has been established and is available for download. The model allows for a more integrated decision analysis because it also takes into account investments into cooking stoves and insulation of the house. Moreover cost of annual crops are taking into account in order to be able to compare scenarios (opportunity cost). xx Glossary xx A large collection of terms of reference have been developed and was used across several project documents. The most comprehensive version of the ToR can be found in D 1.2 overview 'Transferable best practices'.
List of actors
A list of actors as has been realised as a spreadsheet. A template (spreadsheet) was provided by project partner UniGoettingen and contributions to the spreadsheet were made by the project partners. The results were used as a majour input for the stakeholder panel.
Public events
1. Beijing (China), April 2010. Major topic: Difficulties in the current framework of rules and standards to establish an SRF project.
2. Barolo, Northern Italy (near Torino), June 2011: Three day workshop including a one day field trip on the laboratories and fields of project partner Alasia New Clones. Conference topic: SRF and Agroforestry: an exchange of experience between CDM countries and Europe.
3. A virtual public workshop on CDM issues in SRF in November 2010: A live internet based workshop held with participants worldwide via internet. Participation e. g. of staff of the World Bank. Special guest was Dr Galinski from the UNFCCC and Dr Kulkarni, an Indian CDM project developer.
4. An event in Budapest hosted at the FAO office. Topic: How to participate in modern information networks on agriculture and renewable energy. Participation in particular by Indian and Chinese guests.
5. Large events in Ludhiana, Punjab / northern India: An awareness camp in 2010, An IUFRO post-symposium training workshop in February 2011, on 'Working effectively at the interface of forest science and forest policy'.
Project results:
Since the BENWOOD project was of the 'coordination and support action' type no foreground (new research results) have been generated but rather existing ones collected, prepared and communicated.
Potential impact:
The potential impact of the project majorly lies within a risen mutual awareness of differences between Europe and developing countries among key actors. These differences translate to an increased chance of learning from each other. It is important to emphasise 'from each other' because in many cases, as it might maybe not be expected, European countries may learn here from developing countries.
In particular this regards the important issue of agroforestry. The agroforestry topic has reached many European members of the BENWOOD consortium only during project implementation. While there have been dedicated research projects in Europe on this issue, foremost the SAFE project from 2005 and there according publications such as Antonio Rigueiro-Rodriguez and Jim McAdam and Maria Rosa Mosquera Losada: Agroforestry in Europe - Current status and future prospects (Springer 2010), in most cases agroforestry remains a rather unknown issue or is confined to silvo-pastoral systems as is often the case in the European Mediterranean area.
The reality in India where agroforestry systems, for instance with poplar and eucalyptus already pay off for farmers and do not need any more subsidies, brought fresh ideas to the scientific community within the BENWOOD consortium, but, for most as the occasion of the public events, also to the community outside the consortium. One example of this is one of the two directors of project partner Alasia New Clones, Europe's largest private poplar breeder, who was astonished about yields and tree spacings in agroforestry systems in India.
Furthermore, what regards one of the specific issues of the BENWOOD project according to its design, namely CO2 reduction via CDM projects (a scheme within the Kyoto Protocol), there was clarity brought in by Dr Galinski from the UNFCCC. He directly reported on attitudes, problems and wishes of the UNFCCC at the final BENWOOD conference in Barolo / Italy in 2011. The entire speech has been audio-recorded and literally transcribed. (We still await the release on behalf of Dr Galinski for publication.
In his speech a series of research questions which are of direct interest to the UNFCCC have been enlisted and explained. This is direct input to the research agenda of many scientific institutions. Moreover, specifically on the issue of research requirements, according to the project proposal a comprehensive research agenda has been established within the project. This research agenda is publicly available on the website and has been in particular made available to the EU preliminary version as an input for further research working programmes.
At a local level the awareness raising camps and workshops held by project partner PAU in northern India have to be emphasised. Hundreds of participants have attended these events, in case of the awareness raising camps majorly recruiting from farmers. Moreover an IUFRO training on SRF and sustainability was held together with BENWOOD, represented by project partner PAU. IUFRO supported the travel cost of several participants from Africa and South Asia to be able to participate in that event. As a result probably at a local level the biggest impacts have been achieved in India.
Many new contacts have been established at the mid-term conference in China, Beijing, as well as at the final conference in Barolo, Italy which are going to bring fruits. This was not confined at all to merely the research sector, for instance one of Austria's biggest fibreboard producers (Egger) was also present at the event and also explained their position on SRF as a feedstock resource. After the conference the BENWOOD project coordinator met a representative of the Austrian company Andritz, who produces pulping machines (for paper making) and sells them worldwide. The representative regretted not to have been present at the conference (although they had been invited) and ask for according ex post information. The BENWOOD project and its results have been mentioned at various conferences which were documented by the project partners, in particular where they had been invited speakers. Contacts have been established what regards developing countries in particular in Kenya within the large organisation of ICRAF. Even though ICRAF was formally a project partner anyway it was not obvious that inside such a big organisation the project might become known.
Moreover, we had a guest speaker who was off-line recorded in the internet from Ethiopia, a speaker who offered to come but then could not come due to the salary reasons from Nigeria. Furthermore we had a slide presentation from Bolivia. There was a top scientist from the United States with Indian origins who came as a speaker to the Barolo conference with home contacts have been established and kept beyond the project end.
At a national level is important to mention Poland where there is an annual a conference on SRF and related issues in Koszalin where our project partner Jan Dubas has presented Benwood results and found large interest. In Austria project results and in particular the brochure was communicated to the key actors in the sector of SRF who is basically grouped with the according working group in the province of lower Austria.
One of the most promising contacts that has been made was with the FAO at the occasion of a workshop organised at the regional office of the FAO in Budapest in 2011. There the according FAO information officer, Dr Michael Demes, made the suggestion to continue the BENWOOD activities within the so-called SREN network that has been founded within the 70s and been quite inactive during the last five years. This suggestion was picked up by the BENWOOD project coordinator and he is supported in future activities by Dr Chauhan from PAU (India) and Prof. Chang from BJFU (China). As a next activity and online conference on information exchange on shortish and forestry and agroforestry is planned.
List of websites: http://www.benwood.eu/
The project has contributed to giving Short rotation forestry (SRF) a push in many countries within the European Union (EU) and in selected developing countries including Brazil, China and India. Main activities consisted of collecting existing knowledge in several dedicated documents as well as holding public events for the target groups. It is planned to continue project activities beyond the project via the so-called Sustainable rural environment and energy network (SREN) network which is supported by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
In particular, the project has:
1. Provided seven public workshops, six of them with really high participation, all of them of high impact. Among them, one was in cooperation with FAO (see below) and a successfully co-organised International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) symposium in India in cooperation with IUFRO. This cooperation enabled to obtain funding which was used to support participants from Clean development mechanism (CDM)countries and to hold an additional IUFRO training session. Without BENWOOD cooperation the funding would not be possible.
2. Established about 860 pages of direct publications on scientific issues within the sector of SRF. These are papers directly funded by the BENWOOD project, no double count of papers submitted elsewhere anyways (papers, however, not in the sense of peer-reviewed, since the project was of type coordination and support, but in the sense of dissemination character. I refer here only to scientific content papers not project reports).
3. Cooperated highly successfully with the UNFCCC, the agency responsible for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, and brought direct benefit to them triggering the official approval of a new so-called CDM methodology for salinised soils due to a scientific presentation made at our final conference. We have an according appreciation statement of Dr Galinski, team lead of the UNFCCC CDM afforestation / unit.
4. Cooperated with the FAO revitalising the SREN network, which was founded in the 1970s under FAO auspices and which shall be continued by three BENWOOD project partners.
5. Cooperated successfully with the renowned Indian Society of Ecology who has issued a special edition (available on the BENWOOD website) of 245 pages with contributions from authors within and outside India on SRF. They mention in the foreword BENWOOD and the European Commission (EC) in first place when acknowledging funding contributions (other organisations have been IUFRO and ICFRE) that has made the according symposium and the publication possible.
6. Made contacts with several researchers in countries outside Europe on the issue of SRF and agroforestry, among them in particular India, China, some countries in Africa, Brazil, Bolivia and the United States.
Main project results in terms of public deliverables are:
1. a professionally layout brochure including a DVD with related film clips, pictures, pdf and a brochure which sums up the results;
2. guidelines for farmers, project developers, investors and 'intermediaries' including a list with the most important practical things that need to be done and avoided (dos and don'ts);
3. a research agenda;
4. best practices;
5. land use management standards: A description of the conflict between growing trees on agricultural fields and food production with a focus on African case studies;
6. CDM specifics: Outlines the characteristics of countries which may host the so called 'CDM projects' with regard to SRF (traditionally these countries are developing countries);
7. profitability analysis: a synopsis of differences between developing and industrialised countries together with case studies on different business models. Sheds light also on the economic importance of annual crops in agroforestry systems;
8. a document on SRF and CO2 reduction via CDM projects;
9. a report on cooking stoves (relevance of the efficiency of small cooking stoves based on wood fuel);
10. a report on charcoal production;
11. a survey on SRF among key stakeholders;
12. a paper on the characteristics of poplar with a focus on 'utilisation'.
Further the following large public events have been held:
1.Beijing (China), May 2010. Major topic: Difficulties in the current framework of rules and standards to establish a Short rotation forestry (SRF) project.
2.Barolo Northern Italy (near Torino), June 2011: Three day workshop including a one day field trip on the laboratories and fields of project partner Alasia New Clones. Conference topic: SRF and agroforestry: an exchange of experience between CDM countries and Europe.
3.A virtual public workshop on CDM issues in SRF in November 2010: A live internet based workshop held with participants worldwide via internet. Participation e. g. of staff of the World Bank. Special guest was Dr Galinski from the UNFCCC and Dr Kulkarni, an Indian CDM project developer.
4. An event in Budapest hosted in the FAO office. Topic: How to participate in modern information networks on agriculture and renewable energy. Participation in particular by Indian and Chinese guests.
5.Large events in Ludhiana, Punjab / northern India: An awareness camp in 2010, A IUFRO post-symposium training workshop in February 2011, on 'Working effectively at the interface of forest science and forest policy'.
Project context and objectives:
What made the BENWOOD project special is that it tried to establish a scientific information exchange between actors located in Europe and ones in developing countries. Extremely rich information was tapped, to name are in particular experience with agroforestry in India and in China. Indeed some of the project partners plan to continue this information exchange beyond the project end. As a major aspect for Europe the large experience with agroforestry in India and also in China should be taken more into consideration. Despite climatic and other major differences between the two continents / regions many things can be learnt from developing countries, a circumstance which might surprise at first sight. Also what regards the smallholder approach is really worth to look at solutions established in developing countries including in particular also Africa and how these solutions may be adapted on the long run to European conditions.
What is SRF?
Producing firewood by periodically cutting back deciduous trees every 10 to 20 years is an ancient technique claiming some thousands of years of tradition but has been wiped out by the fossil era in the 19th and 20th century in industrialised countries. Only in the last decades, driven by the globally increasing energy demand and the need to reduce fossil fuel consumption, several new initiatives have come up under the name of SRF. The approach is new as it now builds on specially bred and selected clones. They are to a large extent pest resistant, adapted to local climates, soils and able to quickly rebuild new sprouts ('coppicing') after being cut back.
Moreover, modern SRF involves special agricultural harvesting techniques and shorter rotation periods of about 2 to 7 years between two harvests. However, due to sharp drops of the oil price in the 1990s, these 'revival' initiatives have suffered several setbacks despite its strong long-term advantages. At the end, at a global scale SRF has never been able to gain noteworthy attractiveness as a dendromass energy carrier compared to conventional forestry. European SRF areas worth mentioning are found in a rather small number of countries, such as Sweden (approx. 16 000 ha), Poland (approx. 10 000 ha) or Italy (approx 5 000 ha). Each of these countries is represented within the project consortium through a leading national expert.1
What are 'CDM' and 'JI'? xx # CDM and JI projects are part of the so called 'flexible mechanisms' of the Kyoto Protocol providing industrialised countries with the possibility to fulfil their greenhouse gas caps through emission reductions achieved abroad. Both project types rely on the same principle: a country contributes capital to the implementation of a project which reduces greenhouse gases (six eligibgle gases, most important are CO2 and CH4) in another country called 'host country'. Eligible CDM host countries are 'non-annex I parties' (annex of the Kyoto Protocol) which basically are developing countries whereas JI projects are practically implemented in the former European eastern countries, Russia and other transition countries.
The following countries which are realistically eligible as host countries have participated in the Benwood project (in brackets the according partner representing the country in the consortium): CDM: India (PAU), P.R. China (BJFU), Brazil (Plantar), Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Cameroon and Mali (all ICRAF). African countries are eligible to the CDM project cycle but according to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change (UNFCCC) of currently (Feb. 2008) about 860 registered CDM projects in 49 countries Africa accounts for just 2.6 % of the projects. # JI: Croatia (UniZagreb), Poland (Dubas)
Objectives
Why do SRF and CDM / JI not take off together?
Main reasons for the persisting niche market status of SRF are { besides the low energy price of the past { the scarce commercial availability of necessary production factors: Farmers lack regionally adapted and tested high quality planting material ('clones'), appropriate, scalable harvesting, drying, storage and combustion techniques (in particular small to medium farmers) and adapted pest control. Moreover, too little information on the already viable existing solutions reaches the key target groups which mainly are farmers who are the ultimate lacking tested prod decision makers regarding the land and European CDM / JI project developers who may act at a large scale using the current global political framework on climate change (CDM / JI - the 'flexible mechanisms' of the Kyoto Protocol). Both still know too little about SRF specific opportunities and risks relating to financial, technical, biological, agricultural and market (sale of the dendromass) aspects. A non-technical barrier is the uncertainty on how to sustainably satisfy the growing biomass and food demand given the limited amount of arable area. Within that challenge the potential of SRF to make a sustainable contribution is often overlooked when policy makers design national agricultural subsidy schemes.
What needed to be done?
Objectives of the project
BENWOOD has promoted the exchange of experience and practices among researchers and project developers in the area of SRF. This was done via workshops and establishing relevant documents. The focus was on promoting and enhancing the quality of afforestation / reforestation projects done with SRF in developing countries, in particular when implemented under the above described CDM framework of the Kyoto protocol. Main results
Whereas in the executive summary all results have enlisted here only the main results are provided which are: The main results in terms of public deliverables are: Written outputs, SRF guidelines. These guidelines target CDM project developers, farmers and stakeholders from the energy and biomass sector ('SRF guidelines and standards for land use management') and according investors. Taking the guidelines during project development the quality of future SRF projects, especially in developing countries, will be enhanced. They combine requirements on land use management, food safety, hydroregime and climate conditions. A particular focus of the project is on the competition for area between biomass production for energy and food production.
Research and development (R&D) agenda
The R&D agenda describes the most pressing open research questions on SRF.
Public workshops
A three day workshop has already been held in Beijing (China) in April 2010. A highlight was the speech of Dr Kulkarni from an Indian CDM project developer who provided a glimpse into the cumberness of developing a CDM project with a multitude of farmers in the SRF sector. The CEO of China's branch of CAMCO, the world's largest CDM project developer, in his speech explained very openly why SRF projects are currently not very interesting to private project developers. Difficulties in the current framework of rules and standards to establish an SRF project was a major topic. There was strong participation from Chinese decision makers and scientists, as well the FAO and CDM project developers were amongst the audience. The second public workshop was a three day workshop held in Northern Italy, in Barolo including a one day field trip to the laboratories and fields of Alasia New Clones, one of the world's leading poplar breeders. Harvesting machines, a planting machine and a machine preparing poplar cuttings have been demonstrated in operation.
A virtual public workshop on CDM issues in SRF
This live internet based workshop was held with participants worldwide on via internet. The event was well prepared with uploaded documents on the speeches beforehand (available on the website) providing participants with the possibility to forward questions before the event.
DVD and brochure
The brochure is called like that due to the original project proposal, however what regards the final result this is an understatement because it comprises more than 100 pages with highly relevant information on SRF. Moreover it includes a DVD in the rear part holding film and photographic material on the issue. The brochure was done by a professional graphical studio what regards the layout as well as the DVD was established by the same studio. It can be used in a DVD player with according menu choice etc. As a result it is somehow the project's business card or highlight what regards the possibility for dissemination. The brochure (not the fill material due to the volume) may be downloaded from the website, however each country manager has received a considerable number of print copies which third parties may request as long copies are available.
Website
The public website disseminates the project results and provides stakeholders with the possibility to contribute to the project It is continued at 'low flame' after the project's end under the SREN network of the FAO. All deliverables as publications (SRF guidelines, DVD, R&D agenda, brochure, website) will have the same structure (identical chapters in the table of contents). The goal is to make it easier for addressees of the publications to find according information. If a reader finds information within the SRF guidelines in the chapter 'Planting' and wants to know what research questions are currently the most urgent in this area he looks up what is contained in the R&D agenda under the same chapter name 'Planting'. Moreover he may look on the DVD in a directory of the same name if there are any films or pictures related to that chapter (in reality there is an indication in the chapter of each publication what can be found on the issue in the other publications so one does not have to look into each publication).
CDM specifics
This large document shows in the first part generic differences between CDM countries (basically by this expression developing countries are understood) and European countries what regards short collision forestry. In the larger second part various specific questions have been prepared for selected BENWOOD country managers on relevant topics within SRF. These questions (close 200) are answered separately for the countries Brazil, China, India, and for Africa with a focus on Kenya.
Profitability analysis
The paper sheds light onto the role of the financial profit for farmers in SRF. In the paper the farmer's perspective is taken - it is not about the economic aspects of SRF (how does SRF affect the economy of a region or a country). The paper contains case studies which for the case of India and Kenya in particular describe the situation in a small village and for India even in the form of a small story of a fictitious farmer who plans a new SRF culture in an agroforestry scheme. The document holds much interesting data in tabular form on profitability and according basic data, in particular for India, Kenya and for Poland. What regards Poland a detailed analysis of the financial performance of the farm of the Polish BENWOOD project partner is provided so data is particularly reliable.
Spreadsheet model
A large spreadsheet-based model for the financial analysis has been established and is available for download. The model allows for a more integrated decision analysis because it also takes into account investments into cooking stoves and insulation of the house. Moreover cost of annual crops are taking into account in order to be able to compare scenarios (opportunity cost). xx Glossary xx A large collection of terms of reference have been developed and was used across several project documents. The most comprehensive version of the ToR can be found in D 1.2 overview 'Transferable best practices'.
List of actors
A list of actors as has been realised as a spreadsheet. A template (spreadsheet) was provided by project partner UniGoettingen and contributions to the spreadsheet were made by the project partners. The results were used as a majour input for the stakeholder panel.
Public events
1. Beijing (China), April 2010. Major topic: Difficulties in the current framework of rules and standards to establish an SRF project.
2. Barolo, Northern Italy (near Torino), June 2011: Three day workshop including a one day field trip on the laboratories and fields of project partner Alasia New Clones. Conference topic: SRF and Agroforestry: an exchange of experience between CDM countries and Europe.
3. A virtual public workshop on CDM issues in SRF in November 2010: A live internet based workshop held with participants worldwide via internet. Participation e. g. of staff of the World Bank. Special guest was Dr Galinski from the UNFCCC and Dr Kulkarni, an Indian CDM project developer.
4. An event in Budapest hosted at the FAO office. Topic: How to participate in modern information networks on agriculture and renewable energy. Participation in particular by Indian and Chinese guests.
5. Large events in Ludhiana, Punjab / northern India: An awareness camp in 2010, An IUFRO post-symposium training workshop in February 2011, on 'Working effectively at the interface of forest science and forest policy'.
Project results:
Since the BENWOOD project was of the 'coordination and support action' type no foreground (new research results) have been generated but rather existing ones collected, prepared and communicated.
Potential impact:
The potential impact of the project majorly lies within a risen mutual awareness of differences between Europe and developing countries among key actors. These differences translate to an increased chance of learning from each other. It is important to emphasise 'from each other' because in many cases, as it might maybe not be expected, European countries may learn here from developing countries.
In particular this regards the important issue of agroforestry. The agroforestry topic has reached many European members of the BENWOOD consortium only during project implementation. While there have been dedicated research projects in Europe on this issue, foremost the SAFE project from 2005 and there according publications such as Antonio Rigueiro-Rodriguez and Jim McAdam and Maria Rosa Mosquera Losada: Agroforestry in Europe - Current status and future prospects (Springer 2010), in most cases agroforestry remains a rather unknown issue or is confined to silvo-pastoral systems as is often the case in the European Mediterranean area.
The reality in India where agroforestry systems, for instance with poplar and eucalyptus already pay off for farmers and do not need any more subsidies, brought fresh ideas to the scientific community within the BENWOOD consortium, but, for most as the occasion of the public events, also to the community outside the consortium. One example of this is one of the two directors of project partner Alasia New Clones, Europe's largest private poplar breeder, who was astonished about yields and tree spacings in agroforestry systems in India.
Furthermore, what regards one of the specific issues of the BENWOOD project according to its design, namely CO2 reduction via CDM projects (a scheme within the Kyoto Protocol), there was clarity brought in by Dr Galinski from the UNFCCC. He directly reported on attitudes, problems and wishes of the UNFCCC at the final BENWOOD conference in Barolo / Italy in 2011. The entire speech has been audio-recorded and literally transcribed. (We still await the release on behalf of Dr Galinski for publication.
In his speech a series of research questions which are of direct interest to the UNFCCC have been enlisted and explained. This is direct input to the research agenda of many scientific institutions. Moreover, specifically on the issue of research requirements, according to the project proposal a comprehensive research agenda has been established within the project. This research agenda is publicly available on the website and has been in particular made available to the EU preliminary version as an input for further research working programmes.
At a local level the awareness raising camps and workshops held by project partner PAU in northern India have to be emphasised. Hundreds of participants have attended these events, in case of the awareness raising camps majorly recruiting from farmers. Moreover an IUFRO training on SRF and sustainability was held together with BENWOOD, represented by project partner PAU. IUFRO supported the travel cost of several participants from Africa and South Asia to be able to participate in that event. As a result probably at a local level the biggest impacts have been achieved in India.
Many new contacts have been established at the mid-term conference in China, Beijing, as well as at the final conference in Barolo, Italy which are going to bring fruits. This was not confined at all to merely the research sector, for instance one of Austria's biggest fibreboard producers (Egger) was also present at the event and also explained their position on SRF as a feedstock resource. After the conference the BENWOOD project coordinator met a representative of the Austrian company Andritz, who produces pulping machines (for paper making) and sells them worldwide. The representative regretted not to have been present at the conference (although they had been invited) and ask for according ex post information. The BENWOOD project and its results have been mentioned at various conferences which were documented by the project partners, in particular where they had been invited speakers. Contacts have been established what regards developing countries in particular in Kenya within the large organisation of ICRAF. Even though ICRAF was formally a project partner anyway it was not obvious that inside such a big organisation the project might become known.
Moreover, we had a guest speaker who was off-line recorded in the internet from Ethiopia, a speaker who offered to come but then could not come due to the salary reasons from Nigeria. Furthermore we had a slide presentation from Bolivia. There was a top scientist from the United States with Indian origins who came as a speaker to the Barolo conference with home contacts have been established and kept beyond the project end.
At a national level is important to mention Poland where there is an annual a conference on SRF and related issues in Koszalin where our project partner Jan Dubas has presented Benwood results and found large interest. In Austria project results and in particular the brochure was communicated to the key actors in the sector of SRF who is basically grouped with the according working group in the province of lower Austria.
One of the most promising contacts that has been made was with the FAO at the occasion of a workshop organised at the regional office of the FAO in Budapest in 2011. There the according FAO information officer, Dr Michael Demes, made the suggestion to continue the BENWOOD activities within the so-called SREN network that has been founded within the 70s and been quite inactive during the last five years. This suggestion was picked up by the BENWOOD project coordinator and he is supported in future activities by Dr Chauhan from PAU (India) and Prof. Chang from BJFU (China). As a next activity and online conference on information exchange on shortish and forestry and agroforestry is planned.
List of websites: http://www.benwood.eu/