Citola Blog
Forget War of Words, Let's Get Down To Business
In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a propaganda war going on in the environmental space. It seems that each news report or research paper is seized upon and used by the pro- or anti- side of the great conservation debate.
The latest thing to get kicked about in this arena is a report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which brings good news – or maybe bad, depending on how you interpret it.
The upside of the report’s findings is that the rate of deforestation is slowing. Maybe, just maybe, the measures to protect the world’s forests are beginning to take effect.
The downside is that some 13 million hectares of forest are still being lost each year, either through natural wastage, or through conversion to other uses. A decade ago, the rate was higher, at 16 million hectares per annum.
Reforestation efforts, and the efforts of countries such as Brazil – a major focus of Citola’s interests – have mitigated the net losses to just over five million hectares a year, down from more than eight million hectares of annual losses in the previous decade.
Our commercial view at Citola is that you don’t have to be an environmental activist to understand our business and the benefits it brings. The simple fact is that we generate carbon offsets through forestry mechanisms. Our offering makes sense in terms of carbon offsets, timber outcomes, and much more.
Another recent report shows that the locus of debate is moving towards attacking the carbon emissions issue in the United States. And forestation is at the heart of the move to deal with the situation. As Manuel Oliva, director of US policy at Conservation International has recently stated: “The math doesn’t add up without forests.”
Meanwhile, Angus MacNee and the Citola team are getting enthusiastic responses from the London investment community. As promised, we’ll report back later.
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