UBD urged to research effects of climate change on tropical rainforests

UNIVERSITI Brunei Darussalam (UBD) should conduct a research on the effects of climate change to tropical rainforests, as little research is being done on the subject, said an expert from National University Singapore ( NUS) yesterday.

Professor Dr Richard T Corlett, professor of Terrestrial Ecology and Conservation from NUS Department of Biological Sciences said: "Very little work has been done in the tropics. One thing that would be very good for the university here to work on would be in predicting the effects of global warming on its biodiversity."

Professor Dr Corlett is an invited speaker at the Asia Europe Meeting (Asem) workshop on climate change from January 4-14.

"For instance, we don't know how a four-degree rise in temperature could affect the biodiversity in Brunei. Will it affect them greatly, or even kill them?"

"This will be an ideal place to do that sort of research," he said, adding that global climate change was going to affect everyone.

"That is the one that you should worry about and work on, " he told The Brunei Times on the sidelines of the workshop for university students from 24 countries at UBD.

Professor Dr Corlett who presented a paper on Climate change and other threats to tropical rainforests: Which should worry us most? said the major threats over the last 34 years was deforestation (for agriculture), logging and hunting.

"Global warming is going to make all these things worse, even in areas like Brunei where you protect your forests," he said.

He said that we don't really know the effect of global warming on tropical rainforests.

"Unfortunately we have little data on this. Brunei will certainly get at least two degrees warmer this century, but it would probably be three, four, five and six degrees warmer. Tropical forests have not experienced temperatures like this since several million years ago," he added.

He went on to say that there has been very little evidence on what effects it would have.

"Protecting your forests doesn't protect Brunei from global change. Brunei is still going to be affected by global changes. Changes which it is not responsible for."

If you keep your forests intact, it will give you some degree of protection," Professor Dr Corlett said.

For the rest of the countries in the region, the effects of climate change will interact with the effects of deforestation and logging, he added.

The workshop is a collaborative effort between Kuala Belalong Fields Studies Centre and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The Brunei Times