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  Biodiversity Benefits People Educational Series »

  This set of thirteen posters have been created to draw attention to the importance of biodiversity, to celebrate humanity's relationship with it and to underline our responsibility in ensuring that future generations can continue to benefit from it.

  Resource Type: Posters
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  Carbon in Drylands: Desertification, Climate Change and Carbon Finance »

  This paper reviews the potential for carbon sequestration in dryland ecosystems, which includes forests, but also covers other habitats, such as grasslands, and, importantly, soils. It also considers ways in which carbon storage in drylands affects land degradation issues.

  Resource Type: Reports

• Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation and mitigation – good practice examples and lessons learned in Europe »

  This report documents and analyses good practice examples of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation in Europe.  Case studies on ecosystem-based approaches to mitigation involved peatland restoration or conservation (11 projects) and forest conservation, restoration and reforestation (2 projects).  Case studies on ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation were divided into inland waters (28 projects), coastal zone (10 projects), agriculture and forestry (11 projects) and cities (9 projects).

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Climate Change and the Biodiversity of European Islands »

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  Review of the Literature on the Links between Biodiversity and Climate Change »

  UNEP-WCMC has been providing technical support to the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on biodiversity and climate change. We carried out three reviews of the recent scientific literature and these fed into the deliberations of the CBD’s Second Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Biodiversity and Climate Change. These reviews, entitled Links between Biodiversity and Climate change: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation, have now been published as no 42 of the CBD Technical Series. This publication complements the main report from the CBD AHTEG which appears as CBD Technical Series No. 41 Connecting Biodiversity and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Biodiversity Synthesis »

  This report presents a synthesis and integration of the findings concerning biodiversity contained in the reports of the four Millennium Assessment Working Groups (Condition and Trends, Scenarios, Responses, and Sub-global Assessments).

  Resource Type: Reports
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  A safer bet for REDD+: Review of the evidence on the relationship between biodiversity and the resilience of forest carbon stocks »

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  Does EbA Work? A review of the evidence on the effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation »

  A new, systematic review of the evidence on the effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation (EbA) has been carried out to review the effectiveness of EbA and highlight the knowledge gaps. This research was undertaken as a collaboration between BirdLife International, UNEP-WCMC, IIED and the University of Cambridge.

  Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation (EbA) integrate the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services into an overall strategy for helping people adapt to climate change. To date, however, insight into these approaches has often been based on anecdotal case studies of local people’s use of ecosystems. Although they are informative, they can provide rather limited insight in terms of measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of EbA, especially compared with technical or structural adaptation measures. A new, systematic review of EbA evidence has been carried out to interrogate the scientific literature and review studies from around the world, from many different ecosystems and adopting a wide range of adaptation approaches utilising ecosystems. We conclude that EbA approaches are effective and deserve greater policy attention and political support to reach their full potential.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Reducing Emissions from Deforestation: global mechanisms, conservation and livelihoods »

  This briefing considers the implications for biodiversity conservation and local people’s livelihoods of the current discussion on reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (RED-DC, henceforth RED) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The potential for RED to deliver multiple benefits for biodiversity conservation, livelihoods and other ecosystem services is well documented (UNEP-WCMC 2007). But it is important to note that RED could also have negative impacts on biodiversity and local livelihoods, for example as a result of the displacement of deforestation.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Linking Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: A State of Knowledge Review »

  Over recent decades, biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction have both become international societal and political goals. There is recognition of the links between these two goals both within the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Millennium Development Goals. However, the causal relationships are not so simple either that one can say poverty causes biodiversity loss, or improvements in biodiversity reduce poverty. This suggests a need to be more specific in defining what types of poverty and biodiversity issues are being assessed.

  Two “state of knowledge” reviews were commissioned to explore the evidence base for two common assumptions about the link between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction: 1) that the poor depend on biodiversity; and 2) that biodiversity conservation can be a mechanism for poverty reduction. These attempt to tease apart the issues of what type of poverty and what type of biodiversity are being assessed.

  Resource Type: Reports