Forest-CO2 scheme needs cash to save species -study

The United Nations wants the scheme, called reduced  emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), to be part  of a broader pact to fight climate change by rewarding poorer  nations for preserving forests through carbon offset revenue.

Deforestation is a major source of mankind’s greenhouse gas  emissions.

The United Nations hopes REDD will slow the destruction of  forests, particularly tropical forests that act like lungs by  soaking up and locking away planet-warming carbon dioxide.

But Oscar Venter, of the University of Queensland in  Australia, and his colleagues says the risk is that investors  will focus more on saving forests that are most cost-effective  for reducing carbon emissions, such as Brazil’s Amazon basin.

That would leave species-rich “hotspots” in Madagascar,  Indonesia and the Philippines at risk of destruction.

“The study reveals if carbon payments focus narrowly on  carbon and ignore threatened biodiversity, carbon-trading alone  won’t be enough to stave off large-scale extinctions of  tropical species,” said co-author Kerrie Wilson.

The study, published in the journal Science, says  relatively small amounts of cash could help save species in  less financially attractive areas.

Venter told Reuters any final design on REDD, which  negotiators will be discussing at U.N. climate talks in  Copenhagen from Monday, must enshrine protection of  biodiversity, a scientific term that has critical meaning to  our well-being.

“We get tonnes of services from nature — water filtration,  sediment retention, fire abatement, clean air. These are things  that we get for free.

“It you start eroding the biodiversity providing those  services, all those things, the stability of your fields for  growing crops, the cleanliness of your rivers, will all start  disappearing.”

CARBON RISK-REWARD

Venter and his colleagues used complex modelling looking at  business-as-usual deforestation rates in 68 developing  countries from 2006 to 2015. They found if deforestation could  be cut by 20 percent, funding for a cost-effective REDD scheme  would be spent in eight countries.

The bulk of the investment would go to South America,  particularly Brazil. None would go to Asia because major  investments in palm oil and other crops meant the costs of  displacing these activities makes REDD expensive.

Funding to cut deforestation by 40 percent would see  investments in 20 countries, again mostly in South America.

The study says that through careful targeting of REDD  funds, the biodiversity benefits could be doubled while  incurring a 4-8 percent reduction in the amount of averted  carbon emissions.

Venter said one solution was for big conservation groups  such as WWF and The Nature Conservancy to spend more of their  sizeable annual budgets on developing REDD schemes with a major  biodiversity component.

He also felt that some companies would be willing to pay a  slightly higher price for carbon offsets from projects that  helped saved areas rich in endangered animal and plant  species.