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  UNEP-WCMC Information Series »

  This poster series was designed in 2003 to highlight some key work areas of UNEP-WCMC, including:

  1. About UNEP-WCMC
  2. Biodiversity Information Services
  3. Assessment and Early Warning
  4. Conventions and Policy Support
  5. The UNEP Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities
  6. World Atlas of Biodiversity
   

  Resource Type: Posters
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  Future scenarios for tropical montane and south temperate forest biodiversity in Latin America »

  Chapter from Biodiversity Loss & Conservation in Fragmented Forest Landscapes. The Forests of Montane Mexico and South America.

  Resource Type: Reports

• UNEP Issue Paper No.7 - Bioenergy and REDD+ : Opportunities and Challenges »

  How do bioenergy policies relate to the REDD+ mechanism, is the subject of this new Bioenergy Issue Paper jointly authored by UNEP and UNEP-WCMC.
  The potential contribution of bioenergy in reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases has been widely debated, both in terms of climate change mitigation potential and potential risk of increases in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from land use change. This has raised the question of how bioenergy policies relate to the REDD+ mechanism developed under the UNFCCC. This issue paper examines the complexity of this relationship and stresses the importance of ensuring policy coherence across the relevant sectors.

  For a look at the UNEP Issue Paper Series, please visit:
  http://www.unep.org/bioenergy/Issues/UNEPIssuePaperSeries/tabid/79387/Default.aspx

  Resource Type: Tools / Applications
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  Convention on Biological Diversity poster series »

  This poster series was created to show some of the many topics UNEP-WCMC is involved with in relation to the Convention on Biological Diversity, including the following:

  1. Achieving multiple benefits through a UNFCCC mechanism on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
  2. A Global Network of Protected Areas: On target for 2010 and 2012?
  3. Protecting the Future: Carbon, forests, protected areas and local livelihoods
  4. Progress towards the 30% Management Effectiveness target
  5. Mapping the World's Protected Areas: the role of the WDPA
  6. Forest Certification: How do Latin American standards address biodiversity?
  7. Restoration of tropical dry forests

   

  Resource Type: Posters
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  Global congruence of carbon storage and biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems »

  Deforestation is a main driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. An incentive mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here we use the best available global data sets on terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage to map and investigate potential synergies between carbon and biodiversity-oriented conservation.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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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

• Impacts of climate change and selected renewable energie infrastructures on EU biodiversity and the Natura 2000 network »

  This summary report aims to provide the European Commission with an overview of the likely impact of climate change on biodiversity in the European Union and indications as to how the design and implementation of current policy might need to be adapted in order to ensure that the EU respects its commitment to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 and beyond.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Carbon and biodiversity relationships in tropical forests »

   This paper provides an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding relationships between carbon and biodiversity in tropical forests.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Mountains and Tree Cover in Mountain Regions (2002) »

  General Data License (excluding WDPA)

  Datasets Available from UNEP-WCMC: Excluding WDPA
  Access to UNEP-WCMC datasets is provided on the understanding that you read and consent to be bound by the Terms and Conditions attached. For the purposes of this Agreement the “Data” comprise any of the spatial data and associated attribute data downloadable from the UNEP-WCMC website, excluding the World Database on Protected Areas.

  Read the data policy here

  To provide a global context for a discussion of mountain forests, it is first necessary to define the locations and types of mountain forests, and this in turn requires a definition of mountains or mountain areas. Altitude and slope and the environmental gradients they generate are key components of such a definition, but their combination is problematic. Simple altitude thresholds both exclude older and lower mountain systems and include areas of relatively high elevation that have little topographic relief and few environmental gradients. Using slope as a criterion on its own or in combination with altitude can resolve the latter problem, but not the former. The mountains dataset shows the location of mountain land estimated from a digital elevation model using criteria based on elevation alone (the upper three classes: > 2 500 metres) and at lower elevation, on a combination of elevation, slope and local elevation range. This is an update of the Mountain's of the World 2000 and was produced for the UNEP-WCMC publication Mountain Watch, 2002.

  The mountains dataset has been overlayed with a global data set on percent tree cover taken from MODIS 1-km resolution percent tree cover data, courtesy of University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility. Species richness, density and forest height tend to reduce with increasing altitude; the boundary between forest vegetation and more open ground cover at higher elevation 'the treeline' is an ecological marker signifying the transition to more extreme climatic conditions.

  Resource Type: Spatial Data / Maps
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  Website - Carbon, biodiversity & ecosystem services: exploring co-benefits »

  UNEP-WCMC, with support from the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), has launched a new website highlighting the potential for actions on reducing emissions from land use change to secure additional important benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services (co-benefits). The website demonstrates the utility of spatial analyses to assist decision makers in identifying areas where high carbon, high biodiversity priority, and ecosystem service values overlap, which represent opportunities for securing co-benefits. It showcases UNEP-WCMC’s recent work with in-country partners on developing such analyses and includes an interactive mapping tool that allows users to explore the spatial relationships between carbon and co-benefits.

  Resource Type: Tools / Applications