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  Beyond Carbon: Ecosystem-based benefits of REDD+ »

  When forests that would have been lost or degraded are retained or restored through REDD+, they deliver ‘multiple benefits’ in addition to protecting or enhancing carbon stocks. These ecosystem-based benefits may include conservation of forest biodiversity, water regulation, soil conservation, timber, forest foods and other non-timber forest products. REDD+ can also lead to direct social benefits, such as jobs, livelihoods, land tenure clarification, carbon credit payments or enhanced participation in decision-making under stronger governance. The UN-REDD Programme works with countries to address both ecosystem-based and social benefits, as well as a range of other REDD+ relevant areas. This brochure focuses on the ecosystem-based benefits of REDD+, which often depend upon forest biodiversity.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  International trade in marine species: Is CITES a useful control mechanism? »

  The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was created to prevent species becoming threatened through international trade. It generally prohibits international commercial trade in seriously threatened species but permits trade in a regulated manner in species vulnerable to exploitation but not yet at risk of extinction. CITES covers comparatively few marine taxa, reflecting the fact that most marine species have much greater ranges and fecundity than terrestrial species and so are more resilient to exploitation. The structure of CITES limits its utility as a conservation tool for marine species, but where other mechanisms fail or are absent, it plays a useful role, and it is particularly valuable as an international trade monitoring mechanism.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  The Living Planet Index: using species population time series to track trends in biodiversity »

  The Living Planet Index was developed to measure the changing state of the world's biodiversity over time. It uses time series data to calculate average rates of change in a large number of populations of terrestrial, freshwater and marine vertebrate species. The dataset contains about 3,000 population time series for over 1,100 species. Two methods of calculating the index are outlined: the chain method and a method based on linear modelling of log-transformed data.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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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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  Monitoring for REDD+: carbon stock change and multiple benefits »

  This paper investigates the relationship and potential synergies between monitoring systems for carbon stock changes and multiple benefits from REDD+.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Reconstructing the movements of free-ranging demersal Fish in the North Sea: a data-matching and simulation method »

  Demersal fish cannot be readily tracked using data loggers that provide satellite-based or light-based geolocation. Moreover, fish that are highly mobile within the water column cannot readily be located with other methods, such as the tidal location method (TLM). As an alternative, we describe a process that provides estimates of geographic location by simulating movement paths through geographic locations that match temperature and depth data recorded by data loggers.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Arctic Flora and Fauna: Status and Conservation »

  Arctic Flora and Fauna: Status and Conservation is the first truly circumpolar overview of Arctic biodiversity written for the nonspecialist. It provides the reader with a clear understanding of the importance of the Earth's largest ecoregion and its status in the face of a rapidly changing world.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Seriously Declining Trends in Migratory Waterbirds: Causes - Concerns – Consequences »

  The scope of this report is to present trends of 34 waterbird species for the International Wadden Sea and the four surrounding regions - the Netherlands, the federal states of Germany, Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein, and Denmark.

  Resource Type: Reports
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  Extinction risk from climate change »

  Climate change over the past ~30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species1,2 and has been implicated in one species-level extinction3. Using projections of species' distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20 of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a powerlaw relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (~18) than mid-range (~24) and maximumchange (~35) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
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  Carbon, Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services: Exploring Co-benefits Tanzania »

  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.

  Resource Type: Reports