10.34892/QH8J-1M06
Critchley, Megan
Megan
Critchley
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8569-1175
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Syder, George
George
Syder
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Bradfer-Lawrence, Tom
Tom
Bradfer-Lawrence
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6045-4360
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Mills, Juliet
Juliet
Mills
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Pohnke, Carina
Carina
Pohnke
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Ghali, Charlotte
Charlotte
Ghali
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Sourzac-Lami, Caroline
Caroline
Sourzac-Lami
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Hammer-Monart, Julie
Julie
Hammer-Monart
BirdLife International
Berry, Ashton
Ashton
Berry
BirdLife International
Miles, Lera
Lera
Miles
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0377-5904
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Field, Rob
Rob
Field
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0194-6872
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Natural Climate Solutions Enabling Project: report. Measuring the climate change mitigation potential of the Endangered Landscape Programme
UNEP-WCMC
2021
en
The large-scale restoration of habitats including forests, peatlands and wetlands offers opportunities to tackle the twin crises of anthropogenic climate change and global biodiversity loss. It is therefore critical that restoration projects can maximise their climate change mitigation potential while still delivering biodiversity benefits. This project aims to understand how projects can achieve this, by quantifying the potential contribution of ELP projects to such ‘natural climate solutions’ – – and explore how this can be maximised, without compromising other project goals.
Demonstrating the contribution that ecosystem restoration can make towards climate change mitigation, in addition to the biodiversity benefits that are generated, can be used in policy advocacy for landscape restoration. The results of the project will be used to promote conservation-focused natural climate solutions at key upcoming UN conferences on climate change and biodiversityBy improving understanding of the links between climate change mitigation and ecosystem integrity, this project will provide a vital hook for advocating the use of large-scale restoration as a natural climate solution with policy makers.
This project will develop a tool to enable landscape restoration projects to assess their potential climate change mitigation benefits. This tool will quantify the carbon sequestration potential for each ELP project and identify how this can be optimised in line with biodiversity benefits. This will be achieved by quantifying the carbon sequestration and storage flowing from ELP restoration activities, set against a comparison of ‘business as usual’ for these landscapes. This project will provide important real-world examples of the climate change mitigation benefits that can come from the large-scale restoration of natural habitats, strengthening the case for increasing the capacity and funding available.