Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Oct 25;7(1):14005.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14467-w.

Tropical protected areas reduced deforestation carbon emissions by one third from 2000-2012

Daniel P Bebber  1 , Nathalie Butt  2
Affiliations

Tropical protected areas reduced deforestation carbon emissions by one third from 2000-2012

Daniel P Bebber et al. Sci Rep. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Tropical deforestation is responsible for around one tenth of total anthropogenic carbon emissions, and tropical protected areas (PAs) that reduce deforestation can therefore play an important role in mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services. While the effectiveness of PAs in reducing deforestation has been estimated, the impact on global carbon emissions remains unquantified. Here we show that tropical PAs overall reduced deforestation carbon emissions by 4.88 Pg, or around 29%, between 2000 and 2012, when compared to expected rates of deforestation controlling for spatial variation in deforestation pressure. The largest contribution was from the tropical Americas (368.8 GgC y-1), followed by Asia (25.0 GgC y-1) and Africa (12.7 GgC y-1). Variation in PA effectiveness is largely driven by local factors affecting individual PAs, rather than designations assigned by governments.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The difference between observed and expected remaining forest canopy cover, rd, in non-PA and PA forests. Violin-plot width is proportional to 1 arc minute pixel frequency. Horizontal lines show interquartile ranges and medians. Values for pixels with original (year 2000) canopy cover >20% are shown. Values above the zero line indicate that more canopy remained than expected by a model of remaining canopy cover in non-PA areas.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The difference between observed and expected remaining canopy cover, rd, against predicted remaining canopy cover in PAs for the three tropical forest regions. Shaded circles represent individual PAs with size proportional to geographic area. The magenta lines are smooths, showing the average for different predicted remaining values. PAs in the Americas have positive rd across the range of predicted remaining canopy cover, while the African and Asian PAs are most effective at 60–80% of predicted remaining cover. PAs with areas <1000 ha are not plotted, because of their extremely small size at this scale.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Annual estimated carbon saving in tropical PAs (Mg C ha−1 y−1) from 2000–2012, aggregated to 1 degree pixels, in (a) Americas, (b) Africa, (c) Asia. Red hues indicate carbon loss greater than expected for non-PA areas, blue hues indicate carbon retention greater than expected. This does not include changes in forest carbon in unprotected areas. Images were created using R v. 3.4.0. Specifically, rasters were created with package raster v.2.5.8, and country boundaries drawn using package maps v.3.2.0.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Pan Y, et al. A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests. Science. 2011;333:988–993. doi: 10.1126/science.1201609. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Saatchi SS, et al. Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in tropical regions across three continents. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2011;108:9899–9904. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1019576108. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Houghton RA, Byers B, Nassikas AA. A role for tropical forests in stabilizing atmospheric CO2. Nat. Clim. Change. 2015;5:1022–1023. doi: 10.1038/nclimate2869. - DOI
    1. Le Quéré C, et al. Global Carbon Budget 2016. Earth Syst. Sci. Data. 2016;8:605–649. doi: 10.5194/essd-8-605-2016. - DOI
    1. Baccini A, et al. Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps. Nat. Clim. Change. 2012;2:182–185. doi: 10.1038/nclimate1354. - DOI