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Future carbon emissions from global mangrove forest loss
Mangroves have among the highest carbon densities of any tropical forest. These ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems can store large amounts of carbon for long periods, and their protection reduces greenhouse gas emissions and supports climate change mitigation. Incorporating mangroves into Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement and their valuation on…
Guide for co-elaboration of scenarios: Building shared understanding and joint action for reform and security of forest tenure
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) initiated the GCS-Tenure project in Indonesia, Uganda and Peru conducted the study to analyze the relationships between statutory and customary land tenure and how these relationships affect tenure security of forest-dependent communities, including women and other marginalized groups. Using a global comparative approach…
Testing a multi-scale scenario approach for smallholder tree plantations in Indonesia and Vietnam
Smallholder tree plantations are seen as promising routes to alleviating poverty and increasing forest area among the countries in Southeast Asia. However, implementation has been disappointing, which led scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) to consider a scenario exercise as a way to mitigate the risk of…
Cocoa intensification scenarios and their predicted impact on CO2 emissions, biodiversity conservation, and rural livelihoods in the Guinea rain forest of West Africa
The Guinean rain forest (GRF) of West Africa, identified over 20 years ago as a global biodiversity hotspot, had reduced to 113,000 km2 at the start of the new millennium which was 18% of its original area. The principal driver of this environmental change has been the expansion of extensive…
Envisioning the future and learning from the past: adapting to a changing environment in northern Mali
In West Africa, rural livelihoods depending on natural resources develop coping and adapting strategies to face climate variability or change and economic or political changes. The former Lake Faguibine in northern Mali has experienced drastic ecological, social, and economic changes. Forests have emerged on the former lake and have become…
Environmental services and the precautionary principle: using scenarios to reconcile conservation and livelihood objectives in upper catchments
Strategies for environmental governance and conservation in Africa have relied on regulatory mechanisms (policies) that further restrict already limited livelihood options by prohibiting certain land uses and isolating people from forest resources. Environmental service rewards (ESR) present an opportunity for incentives-based conservation, enabling livelihood and conservation goals to be more…
CarboScen: a tool to estimate carbon implications of land-usescenarios
Land use directly impacts ecosystem carbon and indirectly influences atmospheric carbon. Computing ecosystem carbon for an area experiencing changes in land use is not trivial, as carbon densities change slowly after land-use changes. We developed a tool, CarboScen, to estimate ecosystem carbon in landscapes. It is a simple tool typically…