Forests for Climate vs Forests for Biodiversity

In a forest near the foothills of the Chilean Andes, armies of eucalyptus trees surround remnants of old-growth.

 In a forest south of China’s Inner Mongolia, hectares of identical trees are planted in neat rows and cover a completely bare forest floor. No trace of Insects or birds can be seen - the silence is deafening.

 I’ve been to these forests and am always left wondering the same question – in the age of rising temperatures and mass extinction, can we do better?

Photo of a forest south of Inner Mongolia I visited in 2019

Eucalyptus plantation surrounding forest remnants. FASE/ES

The Climate Crisis and Biodiversity Crisis

We are experiencing record annual global temperatures and an unprecedented rate of species loss. The climate and the biodiversity crises have different implications but are interdependent events. Hotter climates are radically changing environments at a rate that outpaces the capacity of plants and animals to respond and adapt to these new conditions [1]. Declining species diversity accelerates climate change by weakening ecosystems’ capacity for carbon uptake [2] and their resilience to extreme weather events [3].

Both are Managed Separately

Despite their mutually reinforcing dynamics, climate change and biodiversity loss are being managed as separate challenges. To achieve their climate commitments, governments around the world are undertaking massive efforts to reduce emissions and enhance carbon stocks. Often these initiatives are implemented without consideration for the impacts on local biological communities.  Mining for renewable energy production negatively impacts natural habitats [4], solar panels and wind turbines provide additional stressors on local threatened bird and bat populations [5] [6].

 Similarly, international biodiversity commitments are being made without clear references to the threat of climate change. None of the Aichi biodiversity targets explicitly address climate change mitigation as a critical means to their achievement. For instance, Aichi Target 10 calls for action to be taken to minimize multiple anthropogenic pressures on vulnerable ecosystems impacted by climate change, but makes no mention that an stable climate is essential for those actions to be effective. Even the post-2020 framework calls for a substantial decrease in the number of threatened species without acknowledging that climate change mitigation will determine the success of any other conservation measure [1].

The biodiversity and climate crises have separate global targets informed by separate international conferences rendering separate management schemes (you can now trade in both carbon and biodiversity credits). However, in almost every way, these issues are fundamentally linked, and by regarding them as independent we miss major opportunities to manage both simultaneously.

Forests Underpin the Success of Both

Forests are a key focus for climate change.  Governments are using the land sector to achieve their climate commitments and enhance their carbon stocks by reforesting previously deforested or non-forested areas. Under the Bonn Challenge in 2011, countries pledged to restore 350 million hectares by 2030. The impact of some of these efforts has been incredibly impressive. China, which began reforestation and afforestation efforts decades earlier, has managed to regain over 30% of its forest cover [7]. Vietnam has declared it has reached forest transition, gaining net forest each year [8]. If success was measured in tree cover, these countries have definitely met the mark. But the quality of those new forests can be low, often consisting of a small number of fast-growing tree species and bereft of plant and animal life.

 Forests are also considered strongholds for biodiversity. They cover nearly a third of the global land area and are home to roughly 80% of Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity [9]. In particular, primary and intact forests are critical systems for diversity. However, these are being lost at alarming [10]  and accelerating [11] rates. To help slow the loss of these important habitats, the global community is introducing protection measures and restoring previously degraded natural landscapes. In 2022, signatories to the Biodiversity CoP 15 pledged to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030 [12]In 2020, the UN introduced its Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to accelerate global restoration pledges, like the Bonn Challenge.

 The problem is that protected areas and restoration projects do not necessarily halt or reverse degradation. Studies indicate that one-third of existing “protected areas” are degraded [13], and almost half of the area slated for restoration under the Bonn challenge will be monoculture tree plantations [14]. What is “restored” in these cases is actually significantly degraded relative to what they once were - or could be.

 The global forest community seems to be split into two groups: forests for carbon and forests for biodiversity. Why not merge these two mutually reinforcing objectives?

Two Crises, One Solution

Let’s increase carbon uptake and enhance biodiversity by encouraging land managers to adopt and meet practical restoration goals. This way biodiversity targets are attained and the forests themselves will benefit by requiring fewer resources for management and maintenance and becoming resilient to external threats.

How do we do this? We can integrate biodiversity targets at the carbon project level by:

• Including additional biodiversity targets in carbon sequestration projects

• Ensuring verification standards include biodiversity standards (indicators are as measurable as carbon)

• Valuing carbon credits for their contribution to ecosystem enhancement:

 Projects are being peripherally valued based on how much they contribute to other SDGs through rating systems devised by third-party platforms. But biodiversity should be formally recognized as a measurable objective with tangible benefits. Reinventing and reintroducing carbon project standards and verification might not be practical, but perhaps we can devise a coinciding framework to set and assess biodiversity targets. I will discuss what this can look like in my next post.

Works Cited

[1] Y.-J. S. P. L. O. S. Almut Arneth, "Post-2020 biodiversity targets need to embrace climate change," PNAS, vol. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2009584117, 2020.

[2] H. Y. H. C. C. C. Z. M. E. B. S. Z. Y. Z. H. Xinli Chen, "Effects of plant diversity on soil carbon in diverse ecosystems: a global meta-analysis," Biological Reviews, 2020.

[3] European Commission, "Climate change and biodiversity loss should be tackled together," 2022. [Online]. Available: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss-should-be-tackled-together.

[4] M. C. D. J. E. M. W. R. K. V. Laura J. Sonter, "Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity," Nature, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17928-5.

[5] K. H. Courage, "Solar farms are often bad for biodiversity — but they don’t have to be," 18 August 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.vox.com/2021/8/18/22556193/solar-energy-biodiversity-birds-pollinator-land.

[6] A. Millar, "The impact of wind turbines on biodiversity and how to minimise it," 22 March 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/the-impact-of-wind-turbines-on-biodiversity-and-how-to-minimise-it/.

[7] Mongabay, "China Forest Information and Data," [Online]. Available: https://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/China.htm. [Accessed 24 February 2023].

[8] ASB CGIAR, "Lessons on Forest Transition," [Online]. Available: https://www.asb.cgiar.org/article/lessons-forest-transition-vietnam. [Accessed 24 February 2023].

[9] UNEP, "Earth's Biodiversity Depends on the World's Forests," May 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.unep-wcmc.org/en/news/earths-biodiversity-depends-on-the-worlds-forests.

[10] WRI, "The World’s Last Intact Forests Are Becoming Increasingly Fragmented," November 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.wri.org/insights/worlds-last-intact-forests-increasingly-fragmented.

[11] GFW, "Primary Rainforest Destruction Increased 12% from 2019 to 2020," 31 March 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/global-tree-cover-loss-data-2020/.

[12] UNEP, "COP15 ends with landmark biodiversity agreement," December 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/cop15-ends-landmark-biodiversity-agreement.

[13] WCS, "Shocking Study Shows One Third of World’s Protected Areas Degraded by Human Activities," Wildllife Conservation Society, 17 May 2018. [Online]. Available: https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/11284/Shocking-Study-Shows-One-Third-of-Worlds-Protected-Areas-Degraded-by-Human-Activities.aspx.

[14] Nature, "Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon," 2 April 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01026-8.

[15] United Nations, "Climate change the greatest threat the world has ever faced, UN expert warns," October 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/climate-change-greatest-threat-world-has-ever-faced-un-expert-warns#:~:text=NEW%20YORK%20(21%20October%202022,price%2C%20a%20UN%20expert%20said..

[16] United Nations, "2021 joins top 7 warmest years on record: WMO," January 2022. [Online]. Available: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110022.

[17] L. D. Rebecca Lindsey, "Climate Change: Global Temperature," 18 January 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature#:~:text=January%2018%2C%202023-,Highlights,0.18%C2%B0%20C)%20per%20decade..

[18] S. L. Lewis, C. E. Wheeler, E. T. Mitchard and A. Koch, "Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon," Nature, 2019.