Carbon and Biodiversity Co-benefits in Tropical Forest and Agroforestry Ecosystems: A review

Abstract

Global efforts to mitigate climate change are focused on the protection and restoration of forestcarbon. These efforts do not only hold promise for climate protection but also other benefitsincluding conservation of biodiversity, the majority of which is sheltered in the forest. Theseinclude actions to combat climate change and land degradation and actions to halt biodiversityloss through sustainable forest management. However, the challenge remains as to what extentforest conservation that optimizes carbon storage will conserve biodiversity. Understandingsynergies between climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation could be the basisfor attaining sustainable development goals. Library catalogues and public database for studiesthat included carbon stock and biodiversity co-benefits/relationships in tropical forests weresearched and included in a review. This review reveals that forest conservation for carbon isshowing promising results for biodiversity in undisturbed/relatively disturbed tropical forestecosystems. However, some areas with high biodiversity but low carbon may not benefit fromcarbon-based conservation. Given the tropical ecosystem dynamics, it is important to generatemore data based on a specific ecosystem to ascertain the level of this co-benefit. This reviewforms the basis for considering biodiversity conservation in carbon-based conservationplanning.