1. Biodiversity conservation is often considered to be a co-benefit of protecting carbon sinks such as intact forests to help mitigate climate change.
2. Researchers tested this correlation by conducting 97 face-to-face interviews of local land-use experts in twelve landscapes in seven countries and five continents, followed by another set of face-to-face interviews with biodiversity experts.
3. They found positive carbon-to-biodiversity relationships in ten of the twelve landscapes, with biodiversity impacts of measures to increase carbon also positive in eleven of the twelve landscapes, thus indicating that a random land-use change that increases biodiversity is also likely to increase carbon and vice versa.
WCS Media Contact: Stephen Sautner, 7182203682, [email protected]
Study and Journal: "“Payments for adding ecosystem carbon are mostly beneficial to biodiversity”" from Environmental Research Letters
WCS Co-Author(s): Tim Davenport , WCS Tanzania Country Program Director