Carbon, biodiversity and ecosystem services:

Using maps to explore co-benefits from climate change

mitigation

Monika BertzkyEuropean Conference on Biodiversity and

Climate Change13 April 2011

United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Benefits (& risks) of ecosystem management for carbon

• Climate change mitigation measures can deliver benefits in addition to securing carbon - e.g. biodiversity

• But not automatically – issues (and science) are complex

• Important to identify opportunities and risks and to support sound decisions on where and how to manage ecosystems for carbon

UNEP-WCMC’s work on multiple benefits

• Involved in work on multiple benefits from measures to manage ecosystems for carbon, such as REDD+, for about 3 years

• Part of the UN-REDD Programme

Co-benefits/multiple benefits are benefits that areadditional to carbon stock maintenance orenhancement, such as biodiversity and ecosystemservices.

The Carbon Atlas Project 2009-2011

• BMU & BfN support UNEP-WCMC to

o Work at global scale to demonstrate the spatial relationship between carbon and other benefits

o Work at national scale to help countries address co-benefits in the planning and implementation of climate change mitigation measures, such as REDD+

Spatial analysis at national & sub-national scale

• Cambodia

• China (Jiangxi Province)

• Ecuador

• Honduras

• Nigeria

• Tanzania

+ work ongoing with Argentina & Liberia

Different policy questions were addressed, e.g. …

How much of the areas that are high in carbon and important for biodiversity are protected?

In Cambodia, more than three quarters of the area that is high in carbon and an Important Bird Area is either inside protected areas or in Protection Forests.

Kapos et al. 2010

What are current pressures on carbon stocks and where do they occur?

In Nigeria, 13% of the total carbon is stored in oil and gas contract blocks, and another 37% in areas designated for exploitation but not yet contracted.

Ravilious et al. 2010

What are current pressures on carbon stocks and where do they occur?

In Ecuador, 60% of the country’s biomass carbon is within 10 km of areas of recent forest cover loss.

Bertzky et al. 2010

What is the role of the forest in stabilising the soil?

81% of the forest land in Jiangxi Province potentially suffers from extremely severe soil erosion, but forest cover reduces erosion from extremely severe to negligible in 78% of the province.

Lin et al. 2010

How much more carbon could be sequestered?

Many forests in Jiangxi Province are of young age. A preliminary estimate suggests that the total carbon stock of the province could increase by almost 45% if these young forests reached maturity.

Lin et al. 2010

New outputs: Short country profiles

• Based on global and regional data for carbon, biodiversity and protected areas

• Questions considered:

– How much carbon is stored in the country?

– Where are areas of high carbon?

– How do they relate to biodiversity (here KBAs)?

– How much of the area of high carbon and biodiversity importance is protected?

Example: Cameroon

91% of the land that is high in carbon and of biodiversity importance is protected

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100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Inside PAs Outside PAs

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High carbon only High carbon & biodiversity

Short country profiles

• Benin • Burundi• Cameroon• Côte d’Ivoire

• Ghana • Guinea• Kenya• Rwanda

• Sierra Leone• Togo• Uganda• Zambia

The profiles will shortly be available from www.carbon-biodiversity.net and www.unep-wcmc.org

These preliminary analyses are based on regional and global data. They represent a first step in exploring the potential for co-benefits from carbon management for climate change mitigation. Any future work should be conducted in close collaboration with national stakeholders and institutions to ensure that

national priorities are considered and best available national data are used.

Why maps?

• Powerful awareness raising tools to make the case for multiple benefits in climate change mitigation planning;

• Good starting point to think about factors that may need to be taken into consideration in planning and implementing process;

• Data compilation process emphasises what is known and what is not, how good existing data is and what their limitations are.

What are the outcomes (so far)?

• More countries have become aware of this work and want to do something similar;

• Countries have identified the need to try and improve underlying data and take this work further (e.g. related to safeguards and monitoring for multiple benefits);

• Some countries are building multiple benefits into their National Joint Programmes.

Where does it fit?

Policy

Science

Practice

Thank you!

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to BfN and BMU, and to the UN-REDDProgramme for supporting our work. Thanks to all our national collaborationpartners: the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, the ForestryAdministration of Cambodia, the Ministry of the Environment of Ecuador and theNational REDD Technical Committee of Nigeria. Further thanks to BirdLifeInternational and CI for the KBA data, to CRAES, GTZ and BMU for supporting thestudy on Jiangxi Province, China.

References:

Kapos, V., Ravilious, C., Leng, C., Bertzky, M., Osti, M., Clements, T., Dickson, B. (2010) Carbon, biodiversity andecosystem services: Exploring co-benefits. Cambodia. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

Bertzky, M., Ravilious, C., Araujo Navas, A.L., Kapos, V., Carrión, D., Chíu, M., Dickson, B. (2010) Carbon,biodiversity and ecosystem services: Exploring co-benefits. Ecuador. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

Lin, X., Li, G., Bertzky, M., Kapos, V., Wu, X., Li, J., Dickson, B. (2010) Carbon, biodiversity and ecosystemservices: Exploring co-benefits. Jiangxi Province, China. Part II. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

Ravilious, C., Kapos, V., Osti, M., Bertzky, M., Bayliss, J.L., Dahiru, S., Dickson, B. (2010) Carbon, biodiversity and ecosystem services: Exploring co-benefits. Nigeria: Preliminary Results. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

A world where biodiversity counts