Background Summary of the current situation

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1.1 Background

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are now higher than at any time during the past 15 million years World Bank, 2012. With global greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise 2 Herzog, 2009; UNEP, 2012 and existing international commitments on emissions reductions falling short of the level needed to limit global temperature increases within 2°C, temperature rise between 3° and 4°C is increasingly likely World Bank, 2012; UNEP, 2012. Southeast Asia is expected not only to experience greater increases in temperatures but also increased incidence of tropical storms, sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion and water scarcity and excess than any other region World Bank, 2013. Recent projections suggest that parts of the Mekong River Basin may endure average temperature increases of 3°–5°C by 2050 Mekong ARCC, 2013. Millions of people in Southeast Asia rely on forests for their livelihoods Angelsen, 2011; Poffenberger, 2006. Forests are also important for climate change mitigation and provide goods and services that enable communities to increase their resillience to the impacts of climate change. The governments of ASEAN countrieshave recognized the importance of forests and the role of local people in sustainable forest management. Social or community forestry has become a feature of forest management policies and programmes in most ASEAN countries. In 2010, RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests, with support from the ASEAN Social Forestry Network, published a baseline assessment of the role of social forestry in climate change mitigation and adaptation in the ASEAN region. 3 The assessment brought together national and regional data on forests and social forestry and proved to be of great value to decision-makers, donors and civil society organizations working on social forestry. Three years on, there is impetus to update that information to better benefit forthcoming decision-making processes and programme development. This publication thus provides an overview of social forestry in the ASEAN region in 2013, focusing on climate change mitigation and adaptation. The report compiles the most recently available government data on forest area, forest cover and social and community forestry and describes the social forestry models and the main tenure arrangements across the region. It also brings together data and projected trends on climatic changes in the region, including sea-level rise, temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and extreme weather events in each country covered. As with the 2010 baseline study, this assessment focuses on eight ASEAN countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia particularly Sabah state, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. 4

1.2 Report structure, methodology and data sources