New Country Maps Pinpoint
Places Where Investments
in Carbon Can Contribute to Community Livelihoods
and Wider Conservation Goals
Nagoya, 18 October 2010-
Mapping where a country's carbon stocks
overlap with areas that are rich in wildlife
and important for local peoples' livelihoods
is underway in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The aim is to support
international efforts to conserve forests
in order to combat climate change. But in
a way that delivers other benefits including
conservation of economically-important ecosystems
linked with water, fertile soils and other
crucial services.
Under the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), governments
are negotiating a mechanism to provide payments
for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation
and forest Degradation plus additional forest
"activities" (REDD+), with the
aim of halving deforestation by 2020.
It is estimated that
currently close to 18% of greenhouse gas
emissions-equivalent to around six Gigatonnes
(Gt) of C02- are linked with land use change,
mainly through forest loss. In 2004, this
amounted to more greenhouse gas emissions
than those of the transport sector.
The maps, being compiled
by a partnership led by the UN Environment
Programme's World Conservation Monitoring
Centre (UNEP-WCMC), are overlaying the carbon
held in the vegetation and soils of a country's
terrestrial ecosystems with other key features.
These include population
densities; economic activities such as honey
and gum production; the location of existing
Protected Areas and biodiversity.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said:
"The aim is to assist governments in
setting priorities for carbon investments.
In Tanzania for example, several carbon
rich parts of the country are in areas where
the ranges of almost 70% of the country's
mammal species overlap".
"The mapping also
reveals that almost a quarter of Tanzania's
total carbon stocks are in high carbon density
areas that are not formally protected. This
is the kind of science and analysis that
governments from Ecuador to Cambodia are
also now looking at to maximize the benefits
of investments in REDD+ and accelerate a
transition to a low carbon, resource efficient
Green Economy," he added.
UNEP-WCMC's work is
being supported through two streams of funding:
the German Federal Ministry for the Environment,
Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU),
and the UN-REDD Programme.
Maps have been developed
for Cambodia; Jiangxi Province in China;
Ecuador; Honduras; Nigeria and Tanzania.
Under the UN-REDD Programme, UNEP-WCMC is
expecting to do further work for the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Indonesia.
The launch coincides
with the Convention on Biological Diversity's
10th Conference of the Parties Meeting in
Nagoya where progress on the 2010 Biodiversity
Target committed to by the world's governments
will be reviewed, and other issues, including
biodiversity and climate change, will be
considered.
The launch of the reports
comes in advance of the UNFCCC meeting in
Cancun, Mexico this November, where moving
forward on REDD+ will be high on the agenda.
Jon Hutton, Director
of UNEP-WCMC, said: "Tropical forests
host more than two thirds of the world's
terrestrial species, and provide vital ecosystem
services that help to maintain people's
livelihoods. With global biodiversity under
unprecedented threat, identifying areas
that are high in both carbon and biodiversity
offers an opportunity to direct scarce financial
resources in ways that create win-win situations
for climate change mitigation and biodiversity
conservation."
Country Highlights from
the New Maps
Cambodia
Cambodia's total land-based
carbon stock is nearly 3 Gt. Approximately
one third of this is stored in the country's
evergreen forests, such as the biodiverse
wet evergreen forests of the Cardamom Mountains
rainforests in the Southwest of the country.
Nearly one third of
Cambodia's land-based carbon stock is stored
in either Protected Areas (21%) or in Protection
Forests (11%). The remaining carbon stocks
fall under many different government-allocated
land management categories, such as Forest
Concessions, Community Fisheries Areas and
Economic Land Concessions. These indicate
the broad range of stakeholders that are
likely to influence how forest carbon will
be managed.
Jiangxi Province, China
Jiangxi Province, located
in south-eastern China, holds nearly half
a Gigatonne of land-based carbon stock.
The majority of this carbon (71%) is stored
in the Province's needleleaf and broadleaf
forests. Almost half is stored in areas
important for endemic and endangered species.
More than 45% of total
provincial carbon stock lies in areas which
are important for forest products. In Jiangxi
Province, this includes products such as
bamboo, seedlings, seeds, nuts, bamboo sprouts,
and medicinal plants that are important
sources of income for local people.
Securing forest carbon
can also help to maintain the important
contribution that forests make to conserving
soil; in 78% of the Province, forest cover
reduces erosion potential from "extremely
severe" to "negligible".
This means that for vast areas of the province
carbon management could provide co-benefits
in the form of soil conservation and reduced
sedimentation.
Ecuador
The Republic of Ecuador
holds 5.2 Gt of land-based carbon. The majority
of this carbon is located in the rainforests
of the Amazon region and the foothills of
the Andes. Nationally identified areas of
importance for biodiversity conservation
hold 15% of the country's biomass carbon.
Over the next seven years, Ecuador's Socio
Bosque Programme aims to conserve more than
3 million hectares of native forest and
other vegetation at sites selected according
to criteria related to carbon, biodiversity,
other ecosystem services and livelihoods,
and will have between 500 000 and 1.5 million
beneficiaries. Presently, sites already
included in the Socio Bosque Programme contain
about 5% of the country's biomass carbon.
This figure could grow to over 30% if all
the high priority sites are incorporated
into the Programme.
Honduras
The total, land-based
carbon stock of Honduras amounts to almost
2 Gt; the most carbon-rich fifth of the
country holds over a third of total carbon
stock.
In Honduras, Protected
Areas cover 18% of land area and hold 27%
of the country's total carbon stock. Protected
Areas contain 48% of the country's high
carbon density area, and 55% of area where
high carbon and biodiversity priority overlap.
Nigeria
The Federal Republic
of Nigeria holds 7.5 Gt of land-based carbon.
The largest areas of high carbon density
are found in the southern parts of the country,
mostly along the Niger Delta and in the
rainforest regions.
Approximately 4% of
Nigeria's total land-based carbon stock
is in areas of importance for bird species
(Important Bird Areas; IBAs), and more than
8% is found in Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee
distribution areas. Significantly, about
15% of Nigeria's carbon stock is inside
existing Protected Areas and 86% of the
carbon within IBAs is protected.
As Africa's primary
oil producer, Nigeria has allocated a considerable
amount of land for the purposes of oil and
exploration. Understanding how this land
is distributed relative to carbon stocks
can help identify where carbon stocks may
come under pressure from oil and gas development
in the future. Approximately 13% of Nigeria's
total carbon stock (0.97 Gt) is located
in land that has been designated for oil
and gas exploration.
Tanzania
Tanzania's total land-based
stock of carbon is estimated to be close
to 12 Gt. The Kilimanjaro region, at 359
tonnes per hectare, and the Kagera region
at close to 200 tonnes per hectare have
the highest density of carbon in their vegetation
and soils.
Tanzania is rich in
biodiversity, with 359 mammal species and
183 species of amphibians. Species range
data indicate that many areas potentially
rich in mammals and amphibians coincide
with areas of high carbon density.
The country's Protected
Areas network stores around a third of national
carbon stocks. However, nearly a quarter
of the country's carbon is found in areas
of high carbon density that are currently
outside formal Protected Areas.
One source of pressure
on carbon stocks in Tanzania is human-caused
fires. In 2006-2007 such fires may have
affected 180 Mt of biomass carbon. Of this
amount, 30% occurred in high carbon density
areas, which are most likely to suffer long-term
fire damage to carbon stocks.
Notes to Editors
All reports are publicly
available and downloadable on the following
sites:
www.unep-wcmc.org
www.carbon-biodiversity.net
www.un-redd.org/multiple_benefits/tabid/1051/Default.aspx
The carbon and co-benefits
mapping work being carried out by UNEP-WCMC
and country partners has kindly been made
possible through contributions from two
funding sources: the German Federal Ministry
for the Environment, Nature Conservation
and Nuclear Safety (www.bmu.de/english/aktuell/4152.php),
and the UN-REDD Programme (www.un-redd.org/).
The UN-REDD Programme
is a collaborative partnership between the
UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
the UN Development Programme, and UNEP.
The Programme supports countries to develop
capacity to reduce emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation and to implement
a future REDD+ mechanism in a post-2012
climate regime.
The 10th Conference
of the Parties to the UNEP-linked Convention
on Biological Diversity www.cbd.int/cop10
The sixteenth Conference
of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference
of the Parties serving as the meeting of
the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol www.unfccc.int
REDD+ has been proposed
as a mechanism under the UN Framwork Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The aim of REDD+
is to contribute to climate change mitigation
by maintaining and enhancing forest carbon
stocks in developing countries. REDD+ encompasses
the following activities: Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and from forest Degradation
(REDD); and conservation of forest carbon
stocks, sustainable management of forests,
and enhancement of forest carbon stocks
(+).
