Natural disturbances and Kyoto protocol

Abstract

A recent letter published in Nature (Kurz et al. 2008a) reports an outbreak of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia, destroying millions of trees; according to the authors, by 2020, the beetles will have done so much damage that the forest is expected to release more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. All those natural disturbances could overwhelmed all the efforts made by Canada to influence the carbon balance through forest management. Considering that Canada decided not to elect forest management within the Kyoto Protocol, it is clear that future climate mitigation agreements, aimed to encourage changes in forest management, should account for and protect against the impacts of natural disturbances.

Keywords

• Bark beetle
• Climate change
• Fire suppression
• Greenhouse gases
• Kyoto protocol