Agriculture is multi-functional, producing economic goods including food, feed, fibre, and fuel, as well as providing several intangible or non-tradable services to society free of cost. Non-tradable services, unlike economic goods, remain unpriced; as a result, farmers are not compensated monetarily for the benefits of the several non-tradable services they …
Existing targets for biofuels and other forms of bioenergy are based on flawed carbon accounting and should be revised downwards, a draft report by a panel of 19 top European scientists showed. "It is widely assumed that bioenergy is inherently carbon-neutral -- however this assumption is flawed," said the Scientific …
Carbon finance offers the potential to change land management and conservation planning priorities. We develop a novel approach to planning for improved land management to conserve biodiversity while utilizing potential revenue from carbon biosequestration. We apply our approach in northern Australia's tropical savanna, a region of global significance for biodiversity …
There is growing support for characterizing ecosystem services in order to link conservation and human well-being. However, few studies have explicitly included ecosystem services within systematic conservation planning, and those that have follow two fundamentally different approaches: ecosystem services as intrinsically-important targeted benefits vs. substitutable co-benefits. We present a first …
Nitrogen (N) limits the productivity of many ecosystems worldwide, thereby restricting the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to offset the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 emissions naturally. Understanding input pathways of bioavailable N is therefore paramount for predicting carbon (C) storage on land, particularly in temperate and boreal forests. Paradigms of …
Enacted in 1993, before climate change was so prominent in the public media eye, the US Northwest Forest Plan's primary goal was the conservation of old growth forests on public land, and thereby also protecting threatened and endangered species, such as the northern spotted owl. Forest harvests in those public …
Land-use options that increase resilience and reduce vulnerability of contemporary societies are fundamental to livelihoods improvement and adaptation to climate change. Agroforestry as a wide-spread land-use adaptation may potentially support livelihoods improvement through simultaneous production of food, fodder and firewood as well as mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Drawing …
AFFORESTATION, a key climate change reduction strategy recommended by the United Nations, will not have much effect on global temperatures. Instead, if carried out in high altitudes, it may lead to climate warming, according to a study carried out by scientists in Canada. The scientists assessed the impact of replanting …
A healthy ecosystem can provide a variety of crucial services for public goods, such as clean water, nutrient cycling, climate regulation and food security services that contribute directly or indirectly to human well-being. Yet today, many ecosystems are in decline; this is of particular importance to agriculture, which depends on …
Accurate and realistic estimates of carbon stock on trees are essentially required for determining their role in mitigating global warming and climate change in present scenario of enhanced atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) coupled with the rise in temperature. In this background, a study was conducted at National Research Centre for …
Afforestation, the conversion of croplands or marginal lands into forests, results in the sequestration of carbon. As a result, afforestation is considered one of the key climate-change mitigation strategies available to governments by the United Nations. However, forests are also less reflective than croplands, and the absorption of incoming solar …
Community forestry has been rewarded with US$ 95,000 (approximately Rs 6.8 million) for reducing emissions in the atmosphere causing climate change through enhancement of carbon stocks and sustainable management of forests. Representatives of three community forest users
The majority of carbon sequestration at the Earth’s surface occurs in marine continental margin settings within fine-grained sediments whose mineral properties are a function of continental climatic conditions. We report very high mineral surface area (MSA) values of 300 and 570 m2 g in Late Cretaceous black shales from Ocean …
Changes in forest carbon stocks are a determinant of the regional carbon budget. In the past several decades, China has experienced a pronounced increase in forest area and density. However, few comprehensive analyses have been conducted. In this study, we employed the Forest Identity concept to evaluate the changing status …
The UNESCO has released a publication that demonstrates, through a selection of 28 case studies from around the world, that UNESCO biosphere reserves are ideal places to test, evaluate and implement comprehensive climate change policies. The publication, titled "For life, for the future - Biosphere reserves and climate change, a …
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has released a study that provides scientific and technical information on ways to ensure that the design and implementation of policies for REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, as well as conservation, sustainable management of forests …
This report, two years in the making, provides a comprehensive assessment of progress being made towards SFM in each ITTO producer member country and the identifies the challenges remaining. Key findings include that the area deemed to be under sustainable management has grown by 50% over the past 5 years …
This report assesses the scope and opportunities for forest carbon activities and investments in Sri Lanka, the implementation challenges and steps to move forward. This report provides relevant background information and assesses the scope and potential for forest carbon related activities in Sri Lanka. It tracks what is known in …
AT A time when the world is pushing for organic farming, the US is advocating the no-till method. Tilling, a process that turns soil inside out, helps develop a good seed bed while destroying weeds, insects and microbes. Organic farming requires land to be tilled to control weeds and pests …
Many experts believe that low-cost mitigation opportunities in agriculture are abundant and comparable in scale to those found in the energy sector. They are mostly located in developing countries and have to do with how land is used. By investing in projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), countries can …
