Implementation and opportunity costs of reducing deforestation and forest degradation in Tanzania (original) (raw)

Nature Climate Change volume 1, pages 161–164 (2011) Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 31 May 2011

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Abstract

The Cancún Agreements provide strong backing for a REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism whereby developed countries pay developing ones for forest conservation1. REDD+ has potential to simultaneously deliver cost-effective climate change mitigation and human development2,3,4,5. However, most REDD+ analysis has used coarse-scale data, overlooked important opportunity costs to tropical forest users4,5 and failed to consider how to best invest funds to limit leakage, that is, merely displacing deforestation6. Here we examine these issues for Tanzania, a REDD+ country, by comparing district-scale carbon losses from deforestation with the opportunity costs of carbon conservation. Opportunity costs are estimated as rents from both agriculture and charcoal production (the most important proximate causes of regional forest conversion7,8,9). As an alternative we also calculate the implementation costs of alleviating the demand for forest conversion—thereby addressing the problem of leakage—by raising agricultural yields on existing cropland and increasing charcoal fuel-use efficiency. The implementation costs exceed the opportunity costs of carbon conservation (medians of US$6.50 versus US$3.90 per Mg CO2), so effective REDD+ policies may cost more than simpler estimates suggest. However, even if agricultural yields are doubled, implementation is possible at the competitive price of ∼US$12 per Mg CO2.

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Figure 1: District-level results for agricultural rent, charcoal rent and carbon lost under forest conversion.

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Figure 2: Opportunity cost of forest conservation.

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Figure 3: Opportunity and implementation cost estimates for REDD+.

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In the abstract of the version of this Letter previously published, the third sentence from the end should have referred to '...alleviating the demand for forest conversion...'. This has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of this Letter.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by The Leverhulme Trust (UK) under the ‘Valuing the Arc’ programme. B.F. was partially funded by a Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) fellowship at Princeton University. We thank L. Estes, K. Kulindwa, B. Mbilinyi, S. Mwakalila, S. Morse-Jones, R. Naidoo, N. Olwero, B. Phalan, T. Ricketts, P. Sanchez, B. Strassburg and D. Wilcove for helpful discussions and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP), Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
    Brendan Fisher
  2. Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
    Brendan Fisher & R. Kerry Turner
  3. School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
    Simon L. Lewis & Simon Willcock
  4. Department of Zoology, Conservation Science Group, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK
    Neil D. Burgess, Ruth D. Swetnam & Andrew Balmford
  5. WWF-US Conservation Science Program, 1250 24th Street, Washington DC, USA
    Neil D. Burgess
  6. Faculty of Forestry & Nature Conservation, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Chuo Kikuu, Morogoro, Tanzania
    Rogers E. Malimbwi & Panteleo K. Munishi

Authors

  1. Brendan Fisher
  2. Simon L. Lewis
  3. Neil D. Burgess
  4. Rogers E. Malimbwi
  5. Panteleo K. Munishi
  6. Ruth D. Swetnam
  7. R. Kerry Turner
  8. Simon Willcock
  9. Andrew Balmford

Contributions

B.F. and A.B. conceived the study. B.F., A.B., S.L.L., N.D.B. and R.K.T. designed the study. B.F., S.L.L., R.E.M., P.K.M. and S.W. collected data. B.F., A.B., S.L.L., R.D.S., R.E.M., P.K.M. and S.W. analysed the data. B.F., A.B. and S.L.L. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence toBrendan Fisher.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Fisher, B., Lewis, S., Burgess, N. et al. Implementation and opportunity costs of reducing deforestation and forest degradation in Tanzania.Nature Clim Change 1, 161–164 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1119

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