Quantifying the carbon benefits of forest protection projects through modeling deforestation in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Silvia Hristova Petrova, Winrock International, Ecosystem Services Unit, spetrova@winrock.org (Presenting)
Harris Nancy, Winrock International, Ecosystem Services Unit, nharris@winrock.org
Sandra Brown, Winrock International, Ecosystem Services Unit, sbrown@winrock.org
Fred Stolle, World Resources Institute, People and Ecosystem program, fstolle@wri.org

Forest conservation programs often include the creation of ‘protected areas’ that are considered to be valuable for conserving biodiversity and slowing deforestation rates, but the actual threat of deforestation in these areas may be high in some places while practically zero in others. International discussions on reducing emissions from deforestation are ongoing under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In light of these discussions, it behooves countries be able to determine the likelihood, or risk, that a given area will be deforested and to quantify the net reductions of greenhouse gas emissions associated with protecting given areas from deforestation so that they can plan their interventions to maximize carbon benefits. In this case study, we used a spatial modeling approach to identify key drivers of deforestation, create deforestation threat maps and estimate potential business-as-usual baseline CO2 emissions from eighteen protected areas in East Kalimantan, Indonesia that would occur if protection of these areas was not well enforced. Results from our analysis indicate that a further 190,000 ha of East Kalimantan’s forest area would be lost and approximately 135 Tg CO2 would be emitted from existing protected areas between 2003 and 2013 if the present rate of deforestation continued unabated. In other words, 135 Tg CO2 would avoid being emitted during this period if protection of the existing areas was well enforced. We also identified additional areas with high carbon stocks under high deforestation threat that would be important to protect if the carbon benefits of avoided deforestation activities are to be maximized in this region.