Commentary
Biodiversity Conservation in the REDD
1 Daemeter Consulting, Bogor, Indonesia
2 People and Nature Consulting International, Jakarta, Indonesia
3 School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
4 Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
5 School of Biological & Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
6 Department of Anthropology, University of California at Davis, Davis, USA
7 Center for International Forestry and Agricultural Research, Bogor, Indonesia
8 Fauna and Flora International Indonesia Program, Jakarta, Indonesia
9 Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, China
10 Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK
11 Global Environment Centre, Selangor, Malaysia
12 SarVision, University of Wageningen, The Netherlands
13 The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project, Center for International Cooperation in Tropical Peatlands, Palangkaraya, Indoensia
Carbon Balance and Management 2010, 5:7 doi:10.1186/1750-0680-5-7
Published: 23 November 2010Abstract
Deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics is a major source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The tropics also harbour more than half the world's threatened species, raising the possibility that reducing GHG emissions by curtailing tropical deforestation could provide substantial co-benefits for biodiversity conservation. Here we explore the potential for such co-benefits in Indonesia, a leading source of GHG emissions from land cover and land use change, and among the most species-rich countries in the world. We show that focal ecosystems for interventions to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Indonesia do not coincide with areas supporting the most species-rich communities or highest concentration of threatened species. We argue that inherent trade-offs among ecosystems in emission reduction potential, opportunity cost of foregone development and biodiversity values will require a regulatory framework to balance emission reduction interventions with biodiversity co-benefit targets. We discuss how such a regulatory framework might function, and caution that pursuing emission reduction strategies without such a framework may undermine, not enhance, long-term prospects for biodiversity conservation in the tropics.
