ABSTRACT
Countries with predominantly dry forests, such as many in sub-Saharan Africa, have generally not been in the forefront of the negotiations on REDD+, because of the perception that this new policy concerns humid forests and that savanna forest has little to gain from participation. It is true that dry forests by nature have much less biomass above ground per hectare than humid forests, and thus proportionally less above-ground carbon stock on an area basis (for the case of sub-Saharan Africa, 17–70 tonnes of carbon per hectare compared to 193–200 in equatorial forest (Gibbs et al, 2007)), although the carbon pool in the soil may be much greater. They are not generally under great threat from commercial logging either. But their human population densities are much higher than those of humid forests (Campbell et al, 2008). This means that they tend to be more subject to types of degradation associated with subsistence livelihoods, particularly as a result of extraction of woody products for firewood, charcoal and building poles, but also because grazing cattle are often let loose in the forest. Moreover, as population densities increase, the rotation cycles of shifting agricultural systems get shortened, so that production systems that were earlier quite sustainable become less so, and in some places forest does not have sufficient time to recuperate. This means that there may be significant levels of carbon emissions, although the quantities of emissions have not been accurately recorded or even estimated (Achard et al, 2002; Fearnside, 2003).
