Climate-Related Forest Policies and Trends

As part of the carbon cycle, forests have a place in climate-related forest policies and trends. By describing forest-related measures driven by international climate negotiations, such as the afforestation and reforestation under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), or the voluntary carbon market, this chapter illustrates how carbon has become an important but fuzzy commodity. The demand for carbon-focused measures is also seen in suggested activities in the Swedish context, shown with the Arctic Boreal Climate Development (ABCD) project. It can be said that due perhaps to the complexity involved in quantifying and accounting for carbon, other benefits such as energy substitution or improved hydrology from carbon-improving management strategies are being enhanced in the debate.