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Afforestation Policy Analysis

Photo: Red pine plantation, Petawawa Ontario

Background
With ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in December 2002, Canada committed itself to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 6% below 1990 levels over the 2008-2012 period. A portion of these GHG emission reductions can be achieved through increased carbon sequestration in forests. In order to understand the potential of afforestation in meeting our goals, the government of Canada started the Feasibility Assessment of Afforestation for Carbon Sequestration (FAACS) under Action Plan 2000.

Afforestation, or the planting of trees on land that has been bare of trees for a long period of time, is a means of addressing climate change, which is recognized under the Kyoto Protocol. This is because living trees, including fast-growing plantations have the capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

In August, 2003, the Government of Canada announced the details of its $1 billion investment toward the implementation of the Climate Change Plan for Canada. As part of this initiative, Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service (CFS) is implementing the Forest 2020 Plantation Demonstration Assessment (Forest 2020 PDA) to explore the capacity of fast-growing plantations to help Canada address its Kyoto Protocol targets.

The projects undertaken through FAACS have contributed directly to the Forest 2020 PDA because of the mutual reinforcement of the goals of the two projects. The project descriptions, reports and analytical results provided through this web site are the result of both initiatives.

Photo: Soil carbon sampling

How do these two initiatives contribute?
The FAACS initiative has evaluated the feasibility of afforestation, undertaken information collection and land assessment research on privately owned lands, and has contributed to Canada’s Kyoto Protocol carbon measurement and accounting infrastructure to support the mandatory A/R reporting requirements. Research has focused on:

Landowner Consultations
Cost-Benefit Modelling
Carbon Science Development
Land Suitability Assessment

The Forest 2020 PDA Initiative is exploring the use of fast-growing tree plantations to help achieve Canada’s Kyoto Protocol targets. To support this objective, the CFS is conducting an examination of the economics of fast growing plantations and potential options to attract investment into future Canadian plantations, by taking advantage of the combined benefits of both wood fibre, carbon values and other environmental services. Forest 2020 PDA has approached these goals through:

Tree Plantation Demonstration Sites
Further Carbon Research
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Afforestation
Private Sector Investment Analysis

To learn more about these aspects of the program, please choose one of the links below: