Open AccessUsing systematic conservation planning to minimize REDD+ conflict with agriculture and logging in the tropics
Author(s) -
Venter Oscar,
Possingham Hugh P.,
Hovani Lex,
Dewi Sonya,
Griscom Bronson,
Paoli Gary,
Wells Phillip,
Wilson Kerrie A.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
conservation letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.153
H-Index - 79
ISSN - 1755-263X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-263x.2012.00287.x
Subject(s) - logging , deforestation (computer science) , agriculture , palm oil , elaeis guineensis , hectare , agroforestry , business , environmental science , carbon sequestration , natural resource economics , reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation , illegal logging , tropics , firewood , environmental protection , carbon stock , forestry , geography , climate change , economics , computer science , ecology , carbon dioxide , archaeology , biology , programming language
This article describes the first application of systematic conservation planning for prioritizing REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) strategies and agricultural expansion. For a REDD+ program in Indonesian Borneo, we find that the most cost‐effective way to reduce forest‐based emissions by 25% is to better manage protected areas and logging concessions. A more ambitious emissions reduction target would require constraining agricultural expansion and logging, which incurs opportunity costs. We discover, however, that these impacts can be mitigated by relocating oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis ) agricultural leases to areas that store, on average, 130 tons less carbon per hectare and are 8% more productive for oil palm. This reduces the costs of meeting REDD+ targets, avoids conflict with agriculture, and has the unanticipated effect of minimizing impacts on logging. Our approach presents a transparent and defensible method for prioritizing REDD+ locations and strategies in a way that minimizes development trade‐offs and promotes implementation success.