13 December 2009: The UN Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), together with a range of organizations, has participated in a study that identifies areas where carbon and biodiversity benefits can be maximized, including global biodiversity hotspots. The resulting paper, titled “Global Congruence between carbon and biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems,” was published in Conservation Letters and underlines the multiple benefits, as well as new challenges, to areas of high biodiversity from a possible mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD).
The study also highlights areas where carbon funding could provide crucial complementary financing to biodiversity initiatives, and areas that have high value for biodiversity conservation but are less rich in carbon, such as savannahs. UNEP, as part of the UN-REDD Programme, is working with nine countries to get them ready for a REDD mechanism, complimenting work by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. UNEP is also working on generating a universal standard for calculating carbon storage under different farming and land management systems.[UNEP Press Release]
