Carbon credit prices should be increased to protect forests from rubber
A new study recommends raising carbon prices to make them more competitive with rubber revenue as carbon prices do not provide enough incentive to protect Southeast Asian forests from rubber expansion.
Rubber plantations cover around 86,000 square kilometers (33,200 square miles) in Southeast Asia and conservationists worry they are posing an increasingly major threat to the region’s rainforests. A new study published recently in Nature Communications finds rubber profitability far exceeds carbon credit prices designed to discourage deforestation, and urges credit price hikes are needed to protect forests from industry expansion.
When it comes to forest conversion for commodity crops in Southeast Asia, palm oil is the heavy hitter, with vast plantations occupying areas where rainforest once stood. However, rubber appears to be quickly catching up, with data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN indicating rubber plantations covered an area equivalent to around 67 percent of that of oil palm in 2014.
