Abstract
Conservationists strive for practical, cost-effective management solutions to forest-based species conservation and climate change mitigation. However, this is compromised by insufficient information about the effectiveness of protected areas in increasing carbon storage, and the co-benefits of species and carbon conservation remain poorly understood. Here, we present the first rigorous quantitative assessment of the roles of giant panda nature reserves (NRs) in carbon sequestration, and explore the co-benefits of habitat conservation and climate change mitigation. Results show that more than 90% of the studied panda NRs are effective in increasing carbon storage, with the mean biomass carbon density of the whole NRs exhibiting a 4.2% higher growth rate compared with lands not declared as NRs over the period 1988–2012, while this effectiveness in carbon storage masks important patterns of spatial heterogeneity across the giant panda habitats. Moreover, the significant associations have been identified between biomass carbon density and panda’s habitat suitability in ~85% NRs and at the NR level. These findings suggest that the planning for carbon and species conservation co-benefits would enhance the greatest return on limited conservation investments, which is a critical need for the giant panda after its conservation status has been downgraded from “endangered” to “vulnerable”.
Highlights
Many conservation efforts attempt to develop win–win strategies that would be highly efficient at both mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity[1,2,3,4,5]
Despite these great conservation successes[31], it is unclear as to whether the current management plan can concurrently achieve both giant panda conservation and climate change mitigation, or whether these conservation policies need to be revised to take into account the escalating challenges of climate change mitigation and potential climate change-induced habitat shifts to non-reserve areas[34,35,36,37] to enhance the greatest return on limited conservation investments, especially after the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) officially downgraded its conservation status from “endangered” to “vulnerable”, which may lead to a lower security for pandas, mainly because the potential conservation investments would be reduced
Our results indicated that despite their status as nature reserves (NRs), natural forest loss still occurred, but that this loss in panda NRs was reduced compared to lands not declared as reserves
Summary
Many conservation efforts attempt to develop win–win strategies that would be highly efficient at both mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity[1,2,3,4,5]. Province, which is home to more than 70% of the world’s total wild population[32] In these ranges, 46 nature reserves (NRs) have been designated to protect this species and its habitats, and four large-scale surveys (National Giant Panda Survey) have been carried out since 1970s to monitor their recovery. The direct measures of changes in the provision of habitats for giant panda show that conservation efforts and forest restoration in the past decades have greatly improved the quality and area of panda habitats[33] Despite these great conservation successes[31], it is unclear as to whether the current management plan can concurrently achieve both giant panda conservation and climate change mitigation, or whether these conservation policies need to be revised to take into account the escalating challenges of climate change mitigation and potential climate change-induced habitat shifts to non-reserve areas[34,35,36,37] to enhance the greatest return on limited conservation investments, especially after the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) officially downgraded its conservation status from “endangered” to “vulnerable”, which may lead to a lower security for pandas, mainly because the potential conservation investments would be reduced. We analyzed the relationship between habitat suitability and biomass carbon density to explore the potential co-benefits of species and carbon conservation
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