New study is among first to show benefits that carbon payments could have for populations of endangered large mammals in tropical forests
The Borneo orangutan, one of the endangered mammals that could benefit from carbon payments. Photo by Daniel Murdiyarso
A recently published report provides compelling evidence that paying to conserve billions of tons of carbon stored in tropical forests could also protect orangutans, pygmy elephants, and other wildlife at risk of extinction. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Conservation Letters, is one of the first to offer quantitative evidence linking the drive to reduce carbon emissions from forests with the push to preserve threatened mammal biodiversity.
“Our study clearly demonstrates that payments made to reduce carbon emissions from forests could also be an efficient and effective way to protect biodiversity,” said Oscar Venter, a biologist at the University of Queensland in Australia and the study’s lead author. “We now need to see policy discussions catch up with the science, because at the moment the potential co-benefits of linking forest protection to biodiversity are not getting the attention they deserve.”
Researchers from CIFOR, together with scientists from the University of Queensland, The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, examined the potential role of carbon payments in protecting 3.3 million hectares of tropical forest land in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).
The report, Carbon Payments as a Safeguard for Threatened Tropical Mammals, considered the emissions that would be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) if the forest was cleared for development. Based on prices now being paid for carbon dioxide credits on global markets, they compared the revenues that could be derived from protecting the forest and thus avoiding a large amount of carbon emissions, to the revenue that would be derived from converting the forest to oil palm plantations.
They found that if CO2 credits could be sold for US $10 to $33 per tonne, conserving the forest would be more profitable than clearing the land for oil palm. In addition, forest conservation would prevent 2.1 billion tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere and preserve the habitat of some of the world’s most threatened mammal species living in these forests.
The study determined that 40 of Kalimantan’s 46 threatened mammals occur within areas slated for oil palm development. Further, planned oil palm plantations in peat forest areas, where carbon is most abundant (and therefore cheapest) contain almost twice the mammal species density as more expensive areas. In other words, there is a synergy between areas with high levels of biodiversity and areas with an abundance of forest carbon.
‘This tells us that even a REDD mechanism that sells carbon at a relatively low price could carry benefits for both climate change and biodiversity in some very important areas,’ said Douglas Sheil, a co-author and former CIFOR scientist, who is currently serving as director of the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation in Uganda. ‘Now we need to see if these opportunities exist in other regions.’
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Reference
Oscar Venter, Erik Meijaard, Hugh Possingham, Rona Dennis, Douglas Sheil, Serge Wich, Lex Hovani and Kerrie Wilson. 2009. Carbon payments as a safeguard for threatened tropical mammals. Journal Conservation Letters. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122371345/abstract
International media coverage
1. Reuters
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE5537LF20090604 Modest carbon price could save Borneo forests: study
2. Associated Press
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/
ALeqM5hGQHs0YjqKyOkCUUy7__-DnVnchQD98K9GUG1
3. BBC News (UK)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8083706.stm
Rainforest is worth more standing
4. Scientific American Online
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/
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