NIFK14037U Climate Change and Forestry: Monitoring and Policies

Volume 2022/2023
Education

MSc Programme in Environmental Science
MSc Programme in Forest and Nature Management
MSc Programme in Sustainable Forest and Nature Management
MSc Programme in Sustainable Tropical Forestry
 

Content

Course content and focus

The first part of the course deals with climate change risks, mitigation, and adaptation in relation to forestry. It also introduces the concept of forest carbon projects and associated terminology such as additionality, permanence, leakage, and co-benefits. The second part of the course introduces global policies and voluntary initiatives to reduce emissions; particular attention is paid to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+). In the last part of the course, students write a supervised term paper that relates forestry and climate change to the global debate on sustainable development.

 

Relation to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The course particularly relates to SDGs 13 and 15:

SDG13. Climate Action: Deforestation and forest degradation in low-income countries directly account for nearly 20% of human-made annual greenhouse gas emissions. The course specifically focuses on how forests can be governed to mitigate rather than contribute to global climate change. 

SDG15. Life on Land: In addition to carbon storage and C02 sequestration, forests, especially natural forests, are habitats for most of the Earth's terrestrial life forms. Further, the hydrological functions of mountain forests contribute to life-supporting rivers and streams throughout the world.

 

Digitalization

Digitization is mainly included in the course as part of digital information collection and literature search

Learning Outcome

This course focuses on enabling students’ ability to apply scientific knowledge and reasoning to critically assess and discuss climate change and forestry with particular emphasis on monitoring mechanisms and policies.

Knowledge:

Understand key contemporary issues related to climate change and forestry, including forest-dependency, deforestation, national and global forest policy and processes, and the potential of using market-based mechanisms to promote sustainable forest management.

Skills:
Apply principles, theories, and frameworks (i) on climate change and forestry and (ii) to judge the quality of related scientific publications. Communicate clearly, concisely and confidently in written format

Competences:
The students obtain (i) knowledge about climate change, forests and livelihood relationships, (ii) ability to critically assess and discuss discourses and evidence in this area, (iii) ability to assess how science is used in policy debates, and (iv) ability and experience in interacting and discussing in professional forums.

Literature

All material is provided online.

The course draws on basic elements of economic theory and management of renewable natural resources all or part of which are introduced in a wide range of undergraduate programmes.

Academic qualifications equivalent to a BSc degree is recommended.
The course is entirely online. Each theme is structured as a standard format e-module: (i) students study provided topic literature; texts and problems are continuously discussed online with the module-responsible faculty, (ii) facilitated by course responsible faculty and specially invited resource persons, students discuss exercises with each other online, and (iii) the students interact with supervisors on the term paper.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Preparation
  • 60
  • Theory exercises
  • 20
  • Project work
  • 111
  • Guidance
  • 10
  • Exam
  • 5
  • Total
  • 206
Continuous feedback during the course
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Continuous assessment
Type of assessment details
Students eligible to participate in the exam will be assessed according to (i) their completion of exercises throughout the course, and (ii) a supervised term paper.

Weight: Completion of exercises count 80% in the final grade and the term paper counts 20%.

The final grade is calculated as the weighted average of the results from the part-examinations.
Exam registration requirements

Submission of a term paper.

Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
More than one internal examiner
Re-exam

Written assignment.

If the student has passed the online modules but failed to hand in the original term paper, then the student must hand in a new term paper.

If the student has failed the combined online module activities, then the student must hand in a compensatory essay that covers the entire course curriculum.   

Criteria for exam assesment

To obtain the grade 12 the student must fullfil the Learning Outcome