Carbon, Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services: Exploring Co-benefits Tanzania
The maintenance and enhancement of natural carbon stocks is now considered a key climate change mitigation measure. Emissions from land use change, mainly tropical forest loss, contribute an estimated 17.4% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC 2007a), equivalent to around 5.8 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year.
Co‐benefits, often called multiple benefits, are the positive impacts of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) that are additional to emissions reductions. These include ecosystem and social benefits such as biodiversity and non‐timber forest products. Potential co‐benefits from REDD are widely relevant in Tanzania, where forests and woodlands support the livelihoods of 87% of the rural poor (Milledge et al. 2007). Conserving biodiversity also promotes the continued provision of these benefits under environmental change (Campbell et al. 2009), thus increasing resilience to climate change. Depending on where REDD action is taken, the co‐benefits delivered will vary. Simple mapping tools can help identify how carbon, other services and pressures such as fire are distributed and relate to each other.
Here, we map the distribution of carbon stocks in relation to the possible co‐benefits of REDD, alongside other relevant factors. A new map of carbon in Tanzania’s ecosystems has been produced for this analysis.
