Abstract

Following recent agreements at international fora, developing nations have heightened expectations for carbon-based opportunities to raise living standards for the poor and safeguard global biodiversity. An added challenge is to mitigate land degradation in regions that are rich in biodiversity but high in rural poverty. The question then is: can we achieve the often conflicting objectives of carbon emission reduction and sequestration, biodiversity management, as well as ensuring sustainable social and economic development, and what would make those dreams closer to reality? This paper focuses on a REDD + high priority region in Kalimantan, Indonesia. We discuss the challenges in defining spatial distributions of multiple ecosystem services for use in systematic land use and conservation planning at regional to local scales, highlighting the importance of data, definition, and double counting. We then outline the characteristics of areas and land use management within our study area that facilitate achievement of multiple objectives, and highlight regions and management that may challenge this approach. Finally, we discuss how this data can be used to determine tradeoffs and synergies for integrative land use management that explicitly and transparently recognises and plans for biodiversity conservation.

Check out my most recent paper now out in Nature Climate Change: Law et al (2012) A modular framework to manage complexity in international forest carbon policy. http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n3/full/nclimate1376.html