New country maps are being developed in Asia, Africa and Latin America to show where investments in carbon can contribute to conservation goals and improved livelihoods. These maps are being compiled by a partnership led by the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) to overlay the carbon held in the vegetation and soils of a country’s terrestrial ecosystems with other key features.
The effort was on display at Nagoya 2010 this week, where governments are negotiating a mechanism to provide payments for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), with the aim of halving deforestation by 2020. It is estimated that currently close to 18% of greenhouse gas emissions-equivalent to around six Gigatonnes (Gt) of C02- are linked with land use change, mainly through forest loss. In 2004, this amounted to more greenhouse gas emissions than those of the transport sector.
Visit the UNEP site for more details.
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For me the key thing is ensuring that when data is captured that it can be utilised for multiple uses, e.g. REDD+, Conservation, forest management etc – data is costly, and we have to make sure we leverage as much value out of it as possible.