Harnessing REDD+ opportunities for forest conservation and carbon stock enhancement in the Northeastern States of India

Ecological Applications

Evans

Edwards

2018

Shifting cultivation dominates many tropical forest regions. It is expanding into old‐growth forests, and fallow period duration is rapidly decreasing, limiting secondary forest recovery. Shifting cultivation is thus a major driver of carbon emissions through deforestation and forest degradation, and of biodiversity loss. The impacts of shifting cultivation on carbon stocks have rarely been quantified, and the potential for carbon‐based payments for ecosystem services (PES), such as REDD+, to protect carbon in shifting cultivation landscapes is unknown. We present empirical data on aboveground carbon stocks in old‐growth forest and shifting cultivation landscapes in northeast India, a hotspot of threatened biodiversity. We then model landscape‐level carbon stocks under business‐as‐usual scenarios, via expansion into the old‐growth forest or decreasing fallow periods, and intervention scenarios in which REDD+ is used to either reduce deforestation of primary or secondary forest or increase fallow period duration. We found substantial recovery of carbon stocks as secondary forest regenerates, with a 30‐yr fallow storing about one‐half the carbon of an old‐growth forest. Business‐as‐usual scenarios led to substantial carbon loss, with an 80% reduction following conversion of old‐growth forest to a 30‐yr shifting cultivation cycle and, relative to a 30‐yr cultivation landscape, a 70% reduction when switching to a 5‐yr cultivation cycle. Sparing old‐growth forests from deforestation using protected areas and intensifying cropping in the remaining area of shifting cultivation is the most optimal strategy for carbon storage. In areas lacking old‐growth forest, substantial carbon stocks accumulate over time by sparing fallows for permanent forest regeneration. Successful implementation of REDD+ in shifting cultivation landscapes can help avert global climate change by protecting forest carbon, with likely co‐benefits for biodiversity.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Potential Of Redd+ In Shifting Cultivation Landscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying carbon stocks in shifting cultivation landscapes under divergent management scenarios relevant to REDD+

Ecological Applications

Evans

Edwards

2018

“…Carbon‐based PES schemes, such as REDD+, hold potential for biodiversity co‐benefits while protecting carbon stocks in shifting cultivation landscapes (Borah et al, 2018; Gardner et al, 2012), especially in tropical and sub‐tropical mountainous regions with high levels of both carbon sequestration and biodiversity (e.g., Gilroy et al, 2014). Northeast India—a biodiversity hotspot with 66% of its total geographical area under secondary and old‐growth forest cover—has immense potential to harness PES to reduce carbon emissions and biodiversity loss from shifting cultivation (Murthy et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we assess bird species diversity and community composition recovery across fallow ages and the alignment of above‐ground carbon and bird diversity co‐benefits in a shifting cultivation‐dominated landscape of Nagaland, Northeast India. Nagaland is of critical importance for global biodiversity conservation (Myers et al, 2000) and provides a strong potential for biodiversity co‐benefits while mitigating climate change with a high emission mitigation potential under PES, as shown in a previous study (Murthy et al, 2013). Birds are important pollinators (Jing et al, 2015), predators, and seed dispersers (Sekercioglu, 2012), and thus are key indicators of ecosystem resilience to land‐use change (Barlow et al, 2007), making them ideal to assess diversity recovery following shifting cultivation and the alignment of carbon‐biodiversity co‐benefits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

The value of shifting cultivation for biodiversity in Northeast India

Diversity and Distributions

Gilroy

Evans

et al. 2022

Aim: Shifting cultivation is a widespread land-use in many tropical countries that also harbours significant levels of biodiversity. Increasing frequency of cultivation cycles and expansion into old-growth forests have intensified the impacts of shifting cultivation on biodiversity and carbon sequestration. We assessed how bird diversity responds to shifting cultivation and the potential for co-benefits for both biodiversity and carbon in such landscapes to inform carbon-based payments for ecosystem service (PES) schemes.Location: Nagaland, Northeast India. Methods:We surveyed above-ground carbon stocks and bird communities across various stages of a shifting cultivation system and old-growth forest using composite carbon sampling plots and repeated point counts directly overlaying the carbon plots in both summer and winter. We assessed species diversity using species accumulation and rarefaction curves based on Hill numbers. We fitted a linear mixed-effect model to assess the relationship between species richness and fallow age. We also examined possible co-benefits between carbon and biodiversity from fallow regeneration in terms of relative community similarity to old-growth forest across carbons stocks.Results: Farmland and secondary forests regenerating on fallowed land had similar bird species richness to old-growth forests in summer and relatively higher species richness in winter. Within regenerating fallows, we did not find any strong evidence that fallow age influenced bird species richness. Bird community resemblance to oldgrowth forest increased with secondary forest maturity, correlating also with carbon stocks in summer. However, bird community assemblage did not show a strong association with habitat types and carbon stocks during winter. Main conclusions:This study underscores the important role of traditional nonintensive shifting cultivation in providing refuges for biodiversity within heterogeneous habitat mosaics. Effectively managing these landscapes is crucial for both biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration in the subtropics.

“…Here, we investigate the potential of different management scenarios to offer cost-effective protection or recovery of carbon stocks within shifting agriculture. Using economic data from the North-eastern Indian states, where shifting agriculture is responsible for up to 23% of annual forest loss (Murthy et al 2013, Pareta 2013, we analysed the opportunity cost of six intervention scenarios within existing 30 and 5 year cycles, and at-risk primary forest. We then simulated each scenario's potential carbon additionality over the project length.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economically viable forest restoration in shifting cultivation landscapes

Morton

Edwards

2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

Shifting cultivation is a predominant land use across the tropics, feeding hundreds of millions of marginalised people, causing significant deforestation, and encompassing a combined area of land ten-fold greater than that used for oil palm and rubber. A key question is whether carbon-based payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes can cost-effectively bring novel restoration and carbon-sensitive management practices to shifting agriculture. Using economic models that uniquely consider the substantial area of fallow land needed to support a single cultivated plot, we calculated the break-even carbon prices required for PES to match the opportunity cost of intervention in shifting agriculture. We do so in the North-east Indian biodiversity hotspot, where 35.4% of land is managed under shifting agriculture. We found net revenues of US$829.53-2581.95 per 30 ha when fallow area is included, which are an order of magnitude lower than previous estimates. Abandoning shifting agriculture entirely is highly feasible with break-even prices as low as US$1.33 t −1 CO 2 , but may conflict with food security. The oldest fallow plots could be fully restored for US$0.89 t −1 CO 2 and the expansion of shifting agriculture into primary forest halted for US$0.51 t −1 CO 2 , whereas abandoning short-fallow systems would cost US$12.60 t −1 CO 2 . A precautionary reanalysis accounting for extreme economic uncertainty and leakage costs suggests that all interventions, excluding abandoning short-fallow systems, remain economically viable with prices less than US$4.00 t −1 CO 2 . Even with poorly formed voluntary carbon markets, shifting agriculture represents a critical opportunity for low-cost forest restoration whilst diversifying income streams of marginalised communities across a vast area.